


Kinephantom

by CyanideBreathmint



Series: even honey bees [5]
Category: Ghost in the Shell (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Content warning: Discussion of a minor character's suicide, Content warning: Discussion of eating disorders, Content warning: Emotional trauma, Content warning: In-depth discussion of possible sexual coercion occurring while undercover, Content warning: Non-descriptive discussion of a minor character's rape, Content warning: Non-graphic discussion of torture, Content warning: Non-specific POV descriptions of sexual assault, Content warning: Non-specific discussion of sexual assault, Content warning: Non-specific suicidal thoughts, Content warning: Onscreen suicide attempt, Content warning: Second-hand description of nonspecific child abuse, Content warning: State-sanctioned assassination, Content warning: Touch-based sexual harassment of a POV character, Gen, M/M, Police Procedural, Post-Canon, Undercover, no oreos were harmed in the writing of this fic, sad robot boy in sad cyberpunk city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29749512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideBreathmint/pseuds/CyanideBreathmint
Summary: Proto prepares to go undercover as a civilian to investigate a truly heinous series of crimes — the rape and violation of a person's Ghost. But maintaining a false life exacts a price of the person pretending, and Proto finds himself hesitating over what his duties may demand of him.Content warning: Discussion of a minor character's suicideContent warning: Non-descriptive discussion of a minor character's rapeContent warning: In-depth discussion of possible sexual coercion occurring while undercover
Relationships: Proto & Section 9, Proto/OMC
Series: even honey bees [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123595
Comments: 8
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place 7 months after Kouros, and 5 months after the end of Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig. It is also a rather more mature fic than my previous GITS: SAC fic, so please heed the content warnings that will be posted in the tags and in each summary. Also, please don't shout at me for tormenting our collective sad robot son, I had a rather less depressing fic planned taking place earlier in the timeline, but he grabbed the mic and started dictating this instead, so blame him.

Proto is undergoing scheduled maintenance for his biosynthetic body this late afternoon, but he is also undergoing something of an overhaul, and he lies silent and motionless on a brushed-steel table as engineers and surgical technicians work on him. It’s not a great burden, all told, to submit to these processes. He’s cut his connections to most of his body, opting not to feel heat nor cold, pain nor pressure, and he communicates silently, easily over the interface plug in the nape of his neck, where a cable runs from a port built into his synthetic flesh, to a diagnostic console where the engineers can keep tabs on his vitals. 

He busies himself with paperwork while he waits, because he is upset, and he doesn’t want to think about it right now while he’s being cut open by surgical technicians with power tools. Today’s maintenance has been extended because they are replacing the biocells that store power in his body with more efficient ones and there’s a lot more cosmetic work, as well. And truth be told, it’s not the procedures that he’s afraid of, but something else. 

The appearance upgrade isn’t strictly an R&D goal for him, but it’s something that’s necessary for his next mission with Section 9. They’ve doped his blood infusion with red dye and extra micromachines this time, nanotech drones that will deliver additional synthetic chromatophores into his skin, allowing him to blush, or gain a tan. There’s a synthetic growth factor that will also change the way his skin self-renews, allowing him to grow hangnails and calluses. It’s all meant to be very convincing, he thinks, as a tissue sculptor implants follicles into his skin that will also allow him to grow body and facial hair. That’s going to be a slight inconvenience, but it’s an inconvenience a lot of humans live with. 

There’s the sound of metal clanging against metal, and he knows that means that the engineers have finished replacing the biocells hidden in the long bones of his body, and his pelvis. The surgical techs have finished repairing his titanium-reinforced bones with a multi-layered laminate of carbon fiber and bioresin, and the clang is the sound of them removing surgical retractors from the incisions in his artificial flesh, and dropping them into surgical trays. They’ll glue him shut then, and his regeneration will take care of the rest. 

“Status check, Proto,” Dr. Kanazawa says to him, and he turns his thoughts to his body and to the newly empty biocells installed in him. Yes, he can see all the additions they’ve installed in a way that most humans can’t. It's not like an uncyberized person can articulate where their spleens are, it’s an odd cybernetic proprioception he can’t quite explain. They’ve added a way to control the color of his skin within certain limits, and a way to change the color of his hair, although that control will only affect new growth, and not what he’s currently got. These are all capabilities he was built with initially, they just hadn’t integrated them fully into his operating systems until today. 

“I can see the changes, yes,” Proto thinks over the diagnostic interface. “Biocells one through five online… charging very slowly. Could I please get some calories?” he asks. He lets his sense of touch return, but not his sense of pain, and opens his eyes, looking up into the surgical lamp as one of the engineers, Shiori, tips his head gently to the side with double-gloved hands. She’s holding a tube of supplementary nutrition that has been newly developed for his synthetic metabolism — something he can get down the hatch if he’s in need of energy, that’s a little more socially acceptable than chugging straight from a bottle of Everclear, which was his previous option. 

Proto turns his sense of taste off as Shiori squeezes it a little at a time into his mouth, and he swallows it, checks his recharge rate and notes the improvement. The stuff’s pretty much lipids and sugar, plus nutritional supplementation, and tastes like the frosting in the middle of a specific but unnamed American sandwich cookie, but it goes down easily and works fast. He just doesn’t like the inside of his mouth tasting like he sucked on a marshmallow, afterwards, as it’s too sweet, even for him. There’s the repeated pressure of the follicle gun, its stapler-like click in the background as the tissue surgeon works lightly, carefully on him, and he turns his sense of touch back off after he’s finished the tube of glorified frosting, closes his eyes again. 

“Thank you very much,” he thinks, his words scrolling across the monitor one by one. 

“I could try baking special cookies,” Shiori suggests, half-seriously. “They’d look a bit less questionable than you eating an entire tube of what looks like toothpaste.”

“Could you make them taste better than that, though?" Proto asks, welcoming the distraction. Dr. Kanazawa chuckles once, reading Proto’s half of the conversation on the screen.

“I don’t know,” Shiori says seriously. “If I made them too tasty you’d run into the risk of someone stealing them to eat. I had a roommate in undergrad who stole my snacks all the time, it’s been five years, and I still hate her to an unhealthy degree.”

“I could cut her brake lines. Just give me a name,” Proto suggests, completely unseriously. That triggers a guffaw from Dr. Kanazawa, who can be a bit of a crotchety old man at times. But a sense of humor lurks beneath his external grumpiness. 

“Don’t say things like that, Proto,” Shiori says in a false stage whisper, “you’re tempting me even now.” 

— 

In truth, Proto is not the only field officer to be upset at the present time. Some of the others are. The ones who aren’t angry are frightened instead. They may not show it outwardly, but Proto’s sense for human body language is subtle and sophisticated, driven by his ability to analyze human behavior by the nanosecond. He’s not exactly the perfect cold reader — people differ from individual to individual, and each have different tells, but it’s easy to see the microexpressions leaking out behind the professional mask. This is because Section 9 is currently investigating a horrifying and difficult case that has gripped its field officers in a blend of disgust and unease. 

One week ago, a 21-year-old man named Mikio Nakagawa attempted suicide in his apartment in Niihama City, slitting his throat messily, if incompletely, on a live web feed. He spoke of degradation and exploitation in his modeling career, and alluded to having been rented out for rape parties. The public nature of his suicide attempt led to heavy media coverage, partially due to a large contingent of loyal fans, and also because Mikio Nakagawa also happened to be a distaff nephew of the sitting Minister of Education. All that seems ghastly enough on initial view, and is exactly the sort of thing that makes the printing presses bleed ink, except, of course, for the fact that Mikio bore no physical signs of abuse on his admission to hospital. 

This case could have been swept under the rug following that discovery, or explained away as a mental breakdown, except for the due diligence of a single Niihama PD detective, Tatsuya Kanemoto. Kanemoto obtained a warrant to have a qualified support officer scan the comatose Nakagawa’s memories for evidence of sexual assault, and what he found was disturbing indeed. Somehow Mikio Nakagawa experienced multiple sexual assaults in one harrowing evening without receiving any physical injury. The phantom assaults were repeated once more, and then again, until Nakagawa finally cracked and attempted suicide. 

This is not something virtual reality can normally do. E-sex is a titillating and dubiously legal practice in Japan, but any of the users involved can end the scenario at any time. To be able to restrain someone in a coercive simulation and prevent them from waking up or logging out takes a lot of equipment and expertise in a manner that is not usually convenient to the goals of sexual predators or human traffickers alike. Public security agencies like Section 9 have access to hackers who can crack the attack barriers on a cyberbrain and hack sensory input, maybe even gain control over a cyberized body, but it’s a difficult process, and the person being hacked will resist it the whole time. 

Whatever has happened to Nakagawa is tantamount to the rape of his Ghost — his selfhood and individuality, everything that makes him a unique person despite his possession of a high end, if mass-production model cyberbrain. Following that revelation, Section 9 had Nakagawa discreetly put through in-house toxicology screens, using blood, hair, and tissue samples. What they found was enough to warrant Section 9 taking over the investigation entirely. 

Many drugs pass in and out of the bloodstream in mere hours. Some others leave traces in hair and fat tissue, and Section 9, based on Chief Aramaki’s intuitions on the case, was looking for a very specific compound — one that has no trade name, because it was never legal to use in the first place. There are specific military and intelligence uses for it, mostly to induce a suggestible state in others, for the purposes of interrogation or indoctrination. It fell out of use with the increasing adoption of cyberization in the world, due to its inefficiency with highly cyberized military subjects. 

The Americans, before the breakup and balkanization of their nation, called it somnacin. And Mikio Nakagawa’s tissue samples bore traces of it. Someone out there is using somnacin, in conjunction with brain-diving equipment, to lock them into simulations that are no less real for being virtual. Nakagawa may not have been the first victim, either. Young models are subject to a lot of stress, especially in the highest end of the industry which relies entirely on organic models, not individuals who bought their beauty from a manufacturer of prosthetic shells. 

There’s a certain cachet in having an all-natural beauty show off your clothing designs, in the same way rich people consider natural diamonds more precious than synthetic ones. But flesh bodies are subject to weight gain and loss and water retention. Natural skin blemishes due to hormonal changes. Natural bodies get tired, break down, and are fallible. This leads to eating disorders, some of the time. Also, suicides. 

Perversely, people with mostly-natural bodies would also be the best targets for somnacin drugging. Their cyberbrains are made largely up of micromachine enhancements overlaid over an organic brain, with the brain's circulatory system remaining fully intact. The surgery to install interface ports is a trivial matter afterwards, and the nanocircuitry eventually links up to the hardware leads in the ports. This would make them far more suggestible and vulnerable under the drug’s effects than someone who would possess a fully shielded cyberbrain.

It would, of course, have been far too simple to have some kind of overarching factor linking suspected suicides to the Nakagawa case — young models often live in communal housing managed by their agencies, and the running of such places can veer into the coercive, but Nakagawa is privileged and has parents who love him, and he split his time between their home in Kyoto and his very upscale apartment in Niihama City. No, whoever harmed him did not access him at home, Proto suspects. But there’s ample opportunity for malefactors to gain access to an attractive young man who attends parties four nights out of seven every week, rich and powerful relatives or no. 

Section 9’s IR surveillance of Nakagawa is incomplete due to such factors — not all clubs have full surveillance setups, and the ones that do also have private rooms for the rich and beautiful to make use of, mostly to evade the cameras of the yellow press. Which means, of course, that Section 9 is going to have to send a field officer undercover, if they’re going to want to get to the bottom of this, and that Proto is the best candidate for the job, for several very important reasons. 

—

Proto is sore and achy when he turns his sense of touch and pain back on. It’s only his tissues knitting themselves back together. The tissue sculptor is done, and so are the engineers, but Dr. Kanazawa and his lead surgical tech Yosuke linger to keep an eye on Proto’s regeneration, to make sure he isn’t going to reject any of his new enhancements. Shiori is there, too, and she brings a blanket and draws it over him so he’ll have some warmth and modesty while he finishes healing, and she tucks a pillow beneath his head. 

“Thank you,” Proto says to her, but also to Yosuke and Dr. Kanazawa. They’re still infusing dyed blood into him — it’s normally white, but is now the rich crimson hue of human blood, just in case he finds himself wounded on this undercover mission. These upgrades have all been requested by Chief Aramaki, so that Proto can pass more easily as an unmodified human, as opposed to the bioroid that he actually is. In practice most people take Proto for a cyborg with a custom prosthetic body, an assumption he leans on in his work as a field officer at Section 9. 

People tend to tread carefully around individuals who may have been modified beyond typical human limits. This, however, turns to suspicion and fear if the individual doesn’t read as human, which Proto isn’t. He’s an AI, the only fully sapient AI left in Japan, installed into a unique biosynthetic body. He is the culmination of several avenues of research in one project. His cognition and intelligence was intended to create a personality and mindset suited to law enforcement and military duty; his body a means of creating a cyborg body that would be able to repair and maintain itself over long deployments behind enemy lines.

He is, however, only the first iteration of such technology, which means that he has to undergo fortnightly maintenance treatments much as a cyborg will. Eventually, he thinks, someone will engineer a means of fabricating self-repair micromachines and growing engineered stem cells that will actually fit in a humanoid body plan without crowding out all the other necessary structures and organs required for a functioning synthetic metabolism. Until then, he requires regular infusions of blood, and the occasional repair and refit. 

Proto knows why he is being sent on this undercover assignment. This is sensitive enough and dangerous enough that Section 9 cannot risk sending a recruit or a novice out. Moreover, most military and law enforcement professionals to make Section 9 selections tend to be heavily cyberized, due to the demands of the job and the high standards set. Which means it’s going to have to be one of the veteran field officers. Proto just happens to be the only one who looks young enough for the cover, out of the eight currently remaining following Major Kusanagi’s resignation early this April.

But there are also other advantages to deploying an advanced prototype bioroid on this mission, and biochemistry is the greatest one. Drugs intended for humans simply bounce off Proto’s synthetic metabolism, and his sense of taste also possesses specialized receptors that allow him to pick out molecules of drugs hypothetically mixed into something he might drink. Besides, it’s going to be extremely difficult to make him do anything he doesn’t want to when he’s free of constraints, because he also happens to be almost as strong as Batou, who’s a 1.9m tall, 300kg humanoid refrigerator of combat cyborg. Nor will hackers have much luck trying to manipulate Proto’s cognition even if they manage to get past his layered attack barriers, because what lurks behind the cyberbrain-shaped titanium casing in his skull is not an organic brain, nor a cybernetic one, either. 

No, what has him truly uncomfortable on top of his sense of rage at Mikio Nakagawa’s current situation is the fact that he’s smart enough to know that he may have to do things he may not want to, to keep his cover identity. It’s almost a given, in fact, considering the situation he’s going into. Young models are sadly exploited, often by the people they need to please to advance in their careers. Oh, of course sometimes it looks consensual, like the acquisition of a rich and powerful patron, but Proto knows enough about the world he lives in to know that sometimes consent is only given because saying no was never an option in the first place. 

Proto has only existed for two years, and while he is completely anatomically correct and capable of having and enjoying sex (an outgrowth of the technology required to keep the users of fully prosthetic bodies sane), he has not yet actually been physically intimate with anyone else. Oh, he has felt arousal before, during a test required to make sure his new body was functioning entirely as it should, but that was quiet, discreet, in a clinical setting, and what followed was a careful evaluation of his senses of touch and pain, so it was just one tidbit of sensory input in a flood of information. 

But he knows this is going to be different. The Chief knows that Proto is for all intents and purposes a virgin, and has also offered Proto the chance to back out of this mission. But Proto will not volunteer anyone else for anything that he wouldn’t do himself. It’s one of the ethical beliefs his personality was built around, and the thought of violating it makes him even more uncomfortable than pondering the nature of his current mission. Things would be far simpler if he could simply ask one of his coworkers to help him take care of the situation, he thinks. 

Proto knows for the record that Saito is into men, even if it’s something he would never repeat without permission, and they get along well enough. But Saito is also his colleague, and fraternization regulations at Section 9 are strict enough that even Batou and the Major had been unable to express their love to each other while the Major had still been with Section 9. Proto doesn’t know who else suspects the truth about them, but he will not speak of it either, because it’s none of his business and theirs alone. 

He could go out, he thinks, and pick someone up. Discard his inexperience like so many humans do. And it’s not even that he doesn’t know what to do. There’s the net, for one, and there is also control software for everything. But that course of action makes him recoil, the idea of sharing something so personal and intimate with a stranger. It works for some people, he knows, but it’s not something that he feels he can do, if only because he lacks a typical sexual drive, being free from the influence of hormones. To him, sexual intimacy is something you express to someone you know, who you care for, and he would like to at least look into the face of someone who cares also, this first time. 

Proto supposes that the above belief makes him a romantic. If so, he’s not the only one on the face of this planet. But it does make his situation somewhat harder to resolve. Oh, surely he could just turn his sense of touch off and let the control software take care of everything. The Major once alluded to having to do something like this undercover before. But the thought of that fills him with an illogical rage, because he refuses to let his first time be something as mechanical and tawdry as that. He doesn’t particularly care what other people do with their virginity. It’s none of his business, ultimately. 

But he would very much like to at least choose who to give his to. 

— 

It’s almost 7PM by the time Proto gets off the cold steel table, but it makes sense. The work to refit him for this mission went an hour over the projected 3.5 hour duration, and then he took another half-hour to rest, heal, and recharge his new biocells. They’re the most dramatic upgrade to his body, requiring invasive surgery to install, and will impact his continued functioning the most. This will allow him to fight and function at or near full strength, agility, and reflex outputs, allowing him to match someone like Batou or the Major step-for-step, blow-for-blow, for a longer period of time. 

Tonight is also the last night he gets to spend as himself, as Proto, field officer at Section 9, or the man named Hajime Iwasaki on his legal documents, at least for a while. Tomorrow he begins his transformation into someone else, someone named Souji Kondo. Souji is 22, having just returned to Japan from university in the Russo-American Alliance, where his mother’s family lives. Souji majored in psychology as Proto’s legal identity has, but he’s currently at loose ends, having graduated this May, and Section 9 will contrive to have him scouted for an agency by one of Niihama City’s more prominent fashion photographers. From there he will move into communal housing with the other young models and learn the trade, as it were. 

Souji is smart but a bit shallow, affected enough to have bleached most of his hair out to Proto’s cornsilk pale, but his roots will have grown out enough to show his natural dark brown hair color. An initial application of dye will start the process, but the modifications to Proto’s skin and hair follicles will now allow him to vary the color of his hair by controlling settings in his operating system. This, of course, does nothing for the hair he’s already grown out. It will stay the color it is, hence the dye to darken his roots, eyebrows, and eyelashes. But whatever grows in afterwards will be dark brown, and stay that way until Proto chooses otherwise, and changes his hair color again. Souji’s a bit more tanned and freckled than Proto is, having spent a bit more time in the sun in Berkeley, and that, too, is something Proto can now control using the new chromatophores in his skin. 

Souji’s eyes are the same pale gold-brown that Proto’s are, because the engineers working on Proto’s body can really only fast-track one R&D goal at a time, and it was a choice between hair and skin, or eye upgrades. That’s fine. Many Japanese citizens of mixed ancestry have eyes that color. It will be perfectly plausible. Proto has spent some time planning Souji’s wardrobe, acquiring a broad collection of casuals from Russo-American brands which were then put through a slight acid wash to distress them enough to look plausibly worn, but his luggage is Japanese, secondhand, presumably the bags Souji took with him when he flew to California four years ago. 

Proto isn’t going into this mission entirely alone, either, as the high risk involved means that he might need a support team to help him vanish, depending on how things shake out. The Chief allowed him to choose his support crew himself, and they will maintain silent contact with him via cybercomm throughout the duration of his mission, and arrange for him to discreetly receive maintenance for his body every two weeks, if his assignment lasts longer than that. The only veteran on his support team is Saito, if only because Proto thinks he, of all people, would understand some of the risks Proto is taking, most of all. 

The Major would have been Proto’s first choice, frankly, but she isn’t there, and all the wishing in the world isn’t going to bring her back. She would have returned several times over if that were the case, given Batou’s anguished silence over the past few months. Togusa would have been a good support officer, being a former detective, but this case has him so outraged that his temper might be a liability, and it would be organizationally difficult as well, seeing that he is now Section 9’s new field commander. So it’s Saito, and one of the recent recruits, Reiko, who also happens to be qualified to practice medicine, even if she hasn’t done any clinical work in her career to date. That means she can help Proto with his IV line whenever he needs a fresh infusion of blood. 

Besides, Reiko looks younger than her actual age thanks to her youthful-looking prosthetic shell, with bleached-white hair and a boyish dress sense that hovers uneasily between corduroy boyfriend jackets and cigarette pants. She makes it work, somehow. She’s also a good candidate if Souji needs a girlfriend to suddenly manifest out of nowhere. Rounding out the team is Maven, who’s someone you really don’t want to mess with in any kind of fight. He doesn’t anticipate needing her unless things go seriously wrong, but no plan survives contact with the enemy, as they say. 

Proto pulls on his clothing, layer by layer. He buttons his shirt and tucks it into his trousers, leaves the bulk of his hair tucked down his collar while he fastens his belt and buttons the cuffs on his sleeves. Then he flips his shirt collar up and drapes his necktie wrong-side out so he can use his accustomed necktie knot, the Shelby knot. Proto leaves his necktie loose, done but askew as he pauses to take his shoulder holster off one of the hooks hanging off the wall, placed for his convenience behind a folding screen. He then puts it on, closing his eyes in silent acknowledgement of the weight he has just placed literally and metaphorically upon his shoulders. 

Proto is more than strong enough to handle the weight of his sidearm and two spare magazines, but it is a symbol, more so than his badge and ID, of the work he does at Section 9, and he will have to leave that all behind tomorrow and surrender himself to the world armed with nothing else but his wits, strength, and determination. That’s not something he’s afraid of, per se, but his identity as a field officer at Section 9 is ultimately the only one he has known, even prior to his promotion and full activation last year. It was what he was made to be. 

But he can’t just stand here thinking about his identity, not when he has a dinner date to keep tonight. So he settles the holster comfortably over his shoulders and pulls his coat on over it, puts the contents of his pockets back where they belong. Car keys in his left front trouser pocket, wallet in the right. His badge and ID go in an inside coat pocket, on the right, so he can take it out with his left hand. His multitool is already in a leather sheath on his belt, tucked inside the waistband like how someone might carry a pistol, behind the right hip. Proto never goes anywhere without his multitool, either. It’s managed to save lives, and the career of the sitting Prime Minister. That at least is an item his cover identity might plausibly own.

Proto steps out from behind the screen in the lab devoted to his maintenance and care, to find Shiori lingering after the others have left. It’s not unexpected. “How’s Ayumi doing?” he asks her, referring to a childhood friend of hers who has just come out of inpatient mental health, and has now moved in with Shiori’s parents in Kobe. 

“She’s doing —” Shiori makes a moue, at that pause, a slight pursing of her lips. ”well, she’s not how she was when I knew her. But that was ten years ago, people change, and she’s had a hard time lately. Mom won’t stop feeding her, I think she’s trying to make up for lost time. She’s got my old room, for now, and Mom says she’s doing better than she was last week.” 

“I’m glad to hear that,” he says. But she waits, and he knows she has more to say. 

“Proto,” Shiori says, bites down on her lower lip. “It’s not a coincidence that you’re getting all these upgrades that let you pass for human, and that Reiko’s also been training to maintain you over the past week.”

“You know I can’t tell you anything, Shiori.” He can’t, for secrecy and clearance reasons. But this is not the first time she’s inferred what he’s going to do from circumstantial evidence and hints. Any good investigator can do that, and so can a layman who’s good with logic, as she is. 

Shiori puts a hand on Proto’s arm, her touch light, gentle, and he lets her do it, because this is not a liberty she’s taking. She could cop a feel anytime she wanted, using his maintenance sessions as an excuse, but she’s a professional, and an ethical one to boot. No, it’s just that Shiori is one of those rare souls who is genuinely nice in a hard and cynical world. “You don’t need to, I can guess. You’re probably going undercover, aren’t you? No, don’t say anything, I know you can’t answer. But take care, okay?” 

“Yes, Mom,” Proto says, teasing very gently. It’s a reference to a little joke she made following some emergency repairs Proto received at Harima. That, at least, provokes a smile. 

“Goodnight, Proto. Come back safe,” Shiori says. She gives Proto’s arm a brief squeeze, and then lets him go. 

Proto nods, reciprocates with a gentle pat to her shoulder. “Goodnight, Shiori.” 

— 

It’s a busy night at the izakaya, as usual, but Proto has become enough of a regular that the android hostess no longer needs to ask him where he’d like to sit. They know already he’s going to want a booth, one closer to the kitchen doors, where the noise from back of house drowns out the conversation he’s about to have. Takumi is with him, of course. It’s a weekly ritual they’ve been having since February, when Proto asked Takumi to advise him on a case he had been working on at the time. 

They just haven’t ever stopped meeting and chatting over dinner since. Part of this, Proto knows, is because he needs a broader sense of human perspective. He knows his colleagues very well, but only as colleagues. Their private lives are off-limits to him, because most professionals tend to compartmentalize heavily. The work they do is harrowing enough without bringing it home to loved ones, who aren’t trained or prepared to deal with what they deal with. 

And that’s entirely fine. Proto doesn’t need to know who his colleagues are sleeping with, even if it’s each other. It’s none of his business, even if he has suspicions from time to time. 

Proto isn’t confident enough to guess at why Takumi continues to put up with him, though. He has alluded to needing people to talk to, who aren’t also tailors, from time to time. Which makes sense, and echo Proto’s own reasons for meeting up for dinner every week. Takumi also hasn’t been shy about the fact that he was originally attracted enough to Proto to slip him his personal phone number on their first meeting, even if he’s backed off from most of the overt flirting at Proto’s polite refusal. 

Maybe it’s the fact that Proto’s paying for two hours of all-you-can-eat every time they meet up. It could be a combination of the above factors, or it could be something that Proto can’t see yet. People are complex and complicated, and motives aren’t always clear. Nevertheless, he likes having these weekly chats. They’re an oasis of time where he doesn’t have to think about work, which is highly ironic, given how much of his identity is tied into his profession. 

“Wow,” Takumi says, after they sit down. Proto looks up at him, after wiping his hands on one of the chilled towels the staff have placed for their convenience. 

“Wow?” Proto asks. The season has just started to turn from summer to autumn here in Niihama City, but it’s still warm enough outside that most people are in their shirtsleeves. Proto, having ordered a pair of linen suits from Takumi’s father three months back, is perfectly comfortable in his coat.

Takumi nods at Proto’s unbuttoned shirt collar, at the rose-pink foulard silk tie knotted around his neck. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your necktie loose and crooked like that before. I guess I could have noticed sooner, but it’s not as easy to spot from the passenger seat when you’re driving. Long day?”

“You could say that, yeah. Busy,” says Proto, but Takumi shrugs easily, flashes him a brief smile. He’s used to evasive answers by now, given that large swaths of Proto’s life remain heavily classified. Their drinks arrive — two cold beers, and a small array of dishes and appetizers. House pickles dressed with miso sauce, salted boiled edamame, and seasoned, dried squid. 

“You should keep doing it,” Takumi says as he picks a pod of edamame up, squeezes it until a pale green bean peeks out, “there’s a certain degree of sensuality that comes from a perfectly dressed man hinting that there’s more under all those layers. If that’s the look you’re going for, anyway. The Italians do it really well, they’ve got the concept of sprezzatura down pat. But you’ve always been a bigger fan of English tailoring. Still, there’s that whole semiotic of like, catching a hint of the human behind the perfection. It’s why geiko, and I mean the human ones, not the androids, leave a hint of skin showing at the margins of their makeup. I guess the equivalent to a straight guy would be a woman’s blouse gaping just a bit from where the placket pulls apart over the widest point of her bust. Risqué, but not vulgar.” 

“I would do it more often,” Proto says, considering what Takumi has told him, “but formality is required of me for large amounts of my work day, so I can’t.” He thinks back to a team outing to a bar a month ago, where Borma, Paz and Saito played a fierce game of nineball pool. Proto isn’t attracted to Paz per se, but he is a good-looking man, and had been even more so when he propped a knee up on the pool table to line up a shot. His trouser hem had crept up his leg then, revealing a lean, toned calf in a closely fitting dress sock — something that attracted the glances of many women, and a few men. Proto remembers Paz leaving that night with an admirer on his arm, as he often does during such events.

“Boss have a stick up his butt about this, or?” Takumi asks, after a sip of beer.

“Well, no,” Proto says, thinking of Chief Aramaki’s understated, opulent suits, accented almost always with a vivid splash of silk down the front of his white shirts. The Chief was originally Proto’s role model for sartorial standards, up until he started adapting those ideas to suit his own tastes, build, and coloration. “He’s always incredibly well-dressed. One of those men who looks like his suit grew onto him. But he’s not a stickler for formality per se, it’s just we meet people who are.”

“Ahh, I get it,” Takumi waves a hand negligently, as though to banish any semblance of an answer. “Say no more.” 

An android waitress brings them the first entrees of the evening — a small mountain of sashimi covered in toppings, bright orange salmon roe, salted and piled against slices of cucumber, a dish of whelk marinated in a miso-yuzu sauce. “Thanks,” Proto says, as he considers which dish to start with. “So how have you been, this week? How are things working out with, uh, what’s his name.”

“Keiji?” Takumi rolls his eyes briefly. “Ugh, he left Tuesday, and I haven’t missed him at all. Warn me if I’m getting into TMI here, but like, I think it only worked for the time it did because he’s devastatingly good in bed, which is fine, that’s enough to have a hookup on, but when it actually came to knowing him, well. I gotta ask, does the government like surgically remove the personalities of people who sign on to work public security, and if so, how did you escape? Because he’s the most boring man I’ve ever fucked.”

Proto lets out a laugh, a small one, surprisingly light and mirthful despite the low mood he’s in. “I think that would depend on the section he worked… please tell me you don’t know that specific bit of information.” The existence of the various Public Security Sections is not entirely secret, per se, but most civilians wouldn’t know one section from another, and field officers are supposed to be discreet about that. It’s probably not someone Proto knows personally, he very much hopes.

“Because it’s something I’m not supposed to know?” Takumi laughs a little, shakes his head. “No. I don’t. Just that he had a gun on him when we hooked up, and I asked if he was a cop. He mumbled something about public security while he was gnawing on my neck, and then we really got too busy to follow up. Had his badge with his wallet on the nightstand later, but you know, I didn’t open it up to look. Hell, Keiji probably isn’t his real name, just like Hajime Iwasaki isn’t yours.” 

That stings Proto’s feelings a little, quite unexpectedly, perhaps because Hajime is very much his real name, the way he looks at things. It’s the name his father gave him, when he first grew conscious enough to interact with the world. Proto is just what everyone at work calls him, just as “Paz” is not the name on Paz’s birth certificate, “Does it bother you? Not knowing my real name? Or the real name of someone you’re in a relationship with?” 

It takes Takumi a few minutes to come up with a satisfactory answer, and Proto eats silently and waits, while Takumi thinks. “I don’t know,” he says at last. “I mean it’s not something I think about a lot of, because I don’t really spend that much time in relationships as much as just going from one to the other. Maybe my standards are too high, but I just wish for once I’d find someone I can fuck who I can also put up with for more than two months at a time. Most gay guys my age want to party. They don’t understand when I tell them hey, I’ve been at the shop for ten hours, I don’t want to go out to dance at a gay club in the middle of the week.” 

“And me?” Proto asks, after an appropriate pause in the conversation to denote that he has thought about what Takumi has just said. It’s something he’s had to learn, how to pace his conversation for human norms, since his thoughts occur over pico- and nanoseconds. 

They eat more as Takumi takes his time coming up with an answer — that’s how a lot of their conversations go, silence broken by Takumi’s relative chattiness, and that’s fine. It’s not as though Proto has anywhere to go in a hurry, right now. More dishes arrive, a plate of crispy tori karaage, grilled miso eggplants, and a dish of gyoza, before Takumi speaks again. 

“The thing is with you,” he says, “even though there’s a lot of stuff you don’t tell me, I get the feeling that with you what I see is what I get. You don’t go out of the way to lie to me, you’re just politely evasive, or you tell me you can’t tell me outright. Which feels honest and authentic, anyway, in a way you don’t normally get from people who say ‘no comment’.” 

Proto mulls that over wordlessly, the concept of authenticity. A kind of truth and sincerity that implies living according to one’s ideals, as opposed to just feigning pleasantness to get by. “Is authenticity really that important?” Proto asks, looking back up from his plate at Takumi. “Japanese society runs on politeness, it’s a social lubricant that we sometimes overuse, relying on polite fiction instead of the actual truth. We use it to avoid confronting things that scare us or disturb us, like the Satoshi Shibata case two and a half years ago — almost zero media coverage because it’s unseemly.” 

“I think so.” Takumi says very simply. “I spend six hours out of my workday being nice to assholes who don’t deserve it, because I have to be. And you, everything I know about you is what comes out between the lines, sometimes things guessed more than said. But we somehow managed to make a human connection despite that, from the moment we met.”

“It’s not just the free food, then?” Proto asks, needling Takumi very gently. 

“Come on,” Takumi grins, shakes his head. “It was never about the free food in the first place. People just talk better over a meal. It’s really easy to meet people nowadays. Just go to Virtual City Alpha or something. Download a chat app. But it’s really hard to actually know someone. What we wind up having is a sea of acquaintances and no friends.” 

“I have friends,” Proto says, thinking of the other field officers at Section 9. The ranks have swelled enough that he isn’t close to everyone there, no. But the senior field officers, the core of Section 9, those are people he knows very well, and they know him too. 

“Yeah,” Takumi says, taking Proto’s simple statement as a denial, “and you’re still here having dinner with me every week instead of with them.”

“You’re a friend, too,” Proto says, trying to articulate the bond he shares with his colleagues to an outsider who has never seen combat, who has never faced dying on the job, as he has. And yet Takumi is not helpless for that lack of perspective — and Proto scorns the idea that some special operators hold: that civilians are sheep and therefore weak and foolish, because that contempt obviates the entire point of being willing to fight and die in defense of what is right, and of the innocent. “Think of it this way, for me,” he continues. “Technically I work a 40 hour week, officially 9 to 5, two weekends a month. But I’m on call all the time, and on a practical level I’m sometimes there up to 80 hours a week. I once spent three days and two nights on duty until my superior benched me and told me to get some real sleep. My coworkers are companions in every sense of the word. I break bread with them, I bleed with them, I would die for them, and they for me. But that’s a lot of time to spend with someone else, which is why we compartmentalize so heavily, because we have to stay professional. Fraternization is against the regulations, and besides, that’s a way to guarantee that you’ll never be able to escape the burdens of your job. With you I feel like our dinners are an oasis of sanity, so I can remember what I’m working to protect every time I see something — something truly awful.” 

Takumi is quiet, thoughtful, after Proto’s tiny monologue, his gaze slightly absent as he considers what he’s just heard. “I think this is the most you’ve ever told me about how you work and why you do it. Which, I note, is very specifically blank on what exactly you do and where exactly you do it and with whom.”

Proto shrugs. “You’ll find this everywhere, not just in Japan, anyone who’s working in a similar field, like our counterparts in the SAS or GSG-9. You have to trust your colleagues absolutely, but you can’t trust them all the time. That’s too much of a burden for you and for them.” 

“I’m —” Takumi pauses then, eats a bite of fried chicken while he tries to find the right words to say.  
“I’m touched, actually, thinking about that. Because what you’re telling me, is you trust me like that, too. Just I guess in a very narrow way, for my safety and yours.” 

Proto nods, picks up another morsel of fried chicken for himself, but does not eat it, not yet. “And because it’d be unfair to expect anyone, civilian or professional, to bear it all.”

“Right,” Takumi says, while Proto eats. “Look. If there’s anything you ever need to get off your chest in that very non-specific way that you do, I can’t guarantee that I’ll understand, you know? But I’ll try.” 

Proto puts his chopsticks down on his plate, looks down, suddenly anxious and unhappy again. “About that,” he says reluctantly, knowing what’s going to come next, “I’m probably going to be unavailable for dinner in the near future, I have — an assignment.” 

“Overseas —” Takumi looks curious, and then abandons the attempt at a question almost immediately. ”Wait, that was stupid, you can’t tell me where you’re going. Sorry.” 

“No, at least you understand,” Proto says. He makes an attempt at smiling, but gives it up. “I’ll have to change my appearance somewhat, so don’t be shocked if I show back up and got a haircut or something.”

Takumi looks almost wounded at the notion of Proto getting a haircut. “That’s going to be a shame, you have such beautiful hair.”

“It grows back,” Proto shrugs. And it does. It all depends on what the modelling agency wants to do with his — no, with Souji Kondo’s hair. 

“Any sacrifice for the job, huh?” Takumi asks very quietly, seriously. 

Proto answers in the only way he can. “It’s my job. It’s what I do.” 

The flippancy seems to drain out of Takumi then, and Proto realizes that this is the first time he’s seen his friend as he truly is, under the jokes and the humor that he wears as an ironic defense mechanism against the world. “I’ve never seen you like this before. Like, you’re always so composed, so polished. And now you look scared.” And yet it was a glimpse of that kindness and quiet goodness that drew Proto to Takumi in the first place. It’s been there all along.

“Yes, I am scared,” Proto says, deciding that straightforward truth is the best tack to take. “I need a favor from you. A very personal one. And it’s going to sound, I don’t know. Insulting, maybe, or rude, but please, just hear me out to the end, if you could, before you refuse.” 

“Okay,” Takumi says, looking worried, “now I know you’re really afraid, and I don’t want to think about what would scare someone like you. Shit.”

“Remember when we went to Rocky’s and Chroma? You told me I’d have people feeling me up, hitting on me. Things like that,” Proto says.

“Yeah.” Takumi nods once, food and drink forgotten for the moment. 

Proto pauses, tries to punctuate the conversation with a sip of his beer, but it feels inadequate. He looks down at his hands, at his plate, before bringing his gaze back up to Takumi’s dark, anxious gaze. “I’m going into a situation where things may go further than that. I may not be able to refuse because that might break my cover. That’s part of the risks we run doing what we do. But — I’ve never been with anyone before. And I —” Words fail him then, as does speech, and he trails off, lets out a short sigh that comes out in a low huff of breath.

“That’s a horrible choice for you to have to make,” Takumi says. “There’s nobody else they can send?”

Proto shakes his head. “If I back out it’d be as though I forced someone else, you understand. Through inaction.” 

“So what can I do to help?” Takumi asks, and then he blinks, the anxiety on his face turning into suspicion, which at least spares Proto the awkwardness of asking outright. “Wait. I think I know what you’re about to ask me to do. _Shit._ ”

“You’ve been open about being attracted to me. And you once told me, you know, to tell you, if I ever figured out if I was into men,” Proto says lamely.

“Yeah,” Takumi protests, “but I thought you weren’t interested because you were straight, and not because — this. Give me a minute. I need a drink.” 

“Of course.” Proto waits while Takumi waves an android waitress over and orders a vodka sour, and they sit in tense silence for the minutes it takes to arrive. 

True to his word, Takumi does not say anything until he’s downed the drink, and this he does in one swift movement, his head tilted back to bare his throat. “Okay,” he says, after he puts his glass down with a slight jitter, the gesture betraying his ambivalence. “So if I have this right, and tell me if I’m not: you want me to sleep with you, because you’d rather give yourself to someone who’s a friend, even if you’re not in love with me, because the alternative is let some stranger use you, I guess.”

That about sums it up, succinctly and directly. “Yes,” Proto says. 

“That’s a hell of a request, Hajime, I want to tell you that. You’ve got some, uh. I don’t know.” Takumi’s brow is furrowed, and Proto reads indignation and hurt in the microexpressions of his face, feels a wretched guilt at doing this to his best friend. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “would it be better if I left now?” 

“No. Don’t.” Takumi closes the fingers of his left hand over Proto’s right, their fingers interlacing after that first, initial touch. It’s a single frightened gesture because words are no longer adequate to articulate what they are both feeling. Proto feels Takumi’s pulse through his hand, the minute vibrations of his heartbeat, imperceptible to unaltered humans, and then blinks in vague surprise as Takumi tugs gently at him, pulls their joined hands up to his lips for a gentle kiss. 

Takumi’s breath is hot against the knuckles of Proto’s fingers, and they’re doing this in public, where others can see, but neither of them can bring themselves to care. 

— 

It’s still dark outside when Proto opens his eyes, although it’s not as though he’s been sleeping, because his mind doesn’t sleep, even while his body rests. Takumi is asleep though, his breathing slow and deep and even, with his head resting on Proto’s shoulder. And why not? It’s not like Proto’s arm is going to fall asleep under the weight. It’s going to be hard to leave without waking Takumi, though, and a part of Proto is reluctant to leave. It’s warm and safe here in Takumi’s bed, and it feels good to have someone else’s skin against him, just the raw, elemental charge of touch that he hadn’t known he had needed until now.

Proto isn’t sure how to fully articulate his feelings, right now, if only because he can’t stop thinking of the startling heat and softness of Takumi’s mouth against his, those clever fingers tangling in his hair to claim him for kiss after hungry kiss. Proto has known in a strange, detached way that sex is supposed to feel good, but ‘supposed to’ is a very different thing from what actually is. He finds himself marking the cycles of his thoughts, picoseconds turning to nanoseconds, to microseconds, and regrets for the first time the endless passage of time. Even now Proto can feel himself rousing from thinking about the filthy and inventive things Takumi did with and to him mere hours ago, that and their shared warmth and closeness, and he shifts a little, wrenches his mind away from the present topic. 

That wakes Takumi, who is apparently a light sleeper, and he lifts his head from Proto’s shoulder, blinks, before he turns his head to glance out the window. “It’s not morning yet, is it?” he asks Proto, his voice slightly hoarse, a little muzzy. 

“It’s a little after six,” Proto says. “I’m sorry, I woke up, and I couldn’t sleep.” This is, of course, a lie, but it’s easier than explaining that he never really sleeps because of all the other explanations that would be required afterwards. These are all things he can never say to Takumi, and the quiet contentment he was feeling before begins to sour into a potent blend of shame and regret. 

“No, it’s fine,” Takumi murmurs. He shifts in bed too, rolling over on his back to stare up at the ceiling. “I’m a clingy sleeper, I know.”

“I would have woken you before I left in any case,” Proto says. He closes his eyes and rolls over onto his side, reaches blindly out to put his left hand on Takumi’s chest, and feel the thrum of his heartbeat. It’s better than the disappointment he’s beginning to feel in himself right now. “It feels wrong,” he says after a few moments of silence, “the thought of leaving someone like I’m trying to steal chickens from a henhouse.” And it does.

“Cute analogy,” Takumi says. Proto feels him moving a little, but not much. No, he’s probably turning his head to look out the window again. “I’ll have to steal it. When do you have to leave?”

“Not yet,” Proto says, because that’s all he wants to say right now. Giving a definite time will make it more real, or so it feels. They lie together, side by side, and minutes pass in silence. Proto thinks that Takumi is beginning to fall asleep again, from the slowing of his pulse and breathing, and he takes his hand away, rolls himself over to stare up at the ceiling too. 

Takumi’s next words come out soft, fuzzy, a little sleepy, but mostly sad. “If something happens to you while you’re undercover, you know. Will I ever know? Or will I just never see you again?”

“I can ask someone on my support team to call you if that happens,” Proto says. Takumi would have a right to know, yes. Proto just didn’t know if it’s something he would have liked particularly to know, not until now.

“Good. Do that. If you don’t have to leave yet —” And Takumi sighs long and low, the kind of sound one makes when words aren’t adequate yet again. “You asked me for a favor last night. Can I ask one of you, now?”

“You may,” Proto says seriously and quietly. How do you reward someone for giving you the gift of their self, he wonders, comes up with nothing. He has done this wrongly, Proto thinks, and now the conversation that came so easily before has dried up, that easy connection between them withering under the weight of ill-considered desire. 

“Stay,” Takumi whispers, as though his request is onerous, wildly unreasonable. “Just for an hour more. Two.” 

“I’ll see what I can do about that,” Proto whispers in return. This, at least, he can do. He turns his head to the left, very slightly, and feels the mattress shift under Takumi’s weight, watches as Takumi rolls over to face him, his gaze bright and hard. Takumi’s mouth tastes salty, hot and wet when they kiss again, as they both close their eyes to the merciless world without for another brief time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proto begins his undercover assignment in the Niihama City fashion scene and learns personally about some of the dangers and pitfalls that a young model can run into. 
> 
> Content warning: Discussion of disordered eating habits  
> Content warning: Discussion of eating disorders.  
> Content warning: Touch-based sexual harassment of a POV character.  
> Content warning: Onscreen suicide attempt.

Proto has snuck out of his current living quarters to sit slightly precariously on a bare concrete roof adjoining the building he lives in, but that’s what you have to do when you have a backpack full of contraband. Or, at least, that’s what Souji Kondo has done, since Proto is undercover, and has been for almost a month. He hates it here, which is novel at least, because Proto hasn’t really found that many things to hate in the course of his existence so far. He dislikes things, yes, and has felt truly indignant before, but hate has been something academic until now. 

There’s the sound of scuffing footsteps behind him, a sound that most people wouldn’t pick out amidst the hum of HVAC system fans. The blocky air conditioning units are truly huge, meant to ventilate a multi level building, and are actually decent cover if you’re looking out of the window he crawled out from, which is why he’s hiding behind one right now. Souji wouldn’t hear it, though, and so Proto feigns shock and surprise when someone taps him on the shoulder. 

“Warn a guy first, why don’t you, Anya?” he asks his guest, who also sits down beside him, behind the air conditioning unit. 

“Sorry, Souji,” she says, as she draws her knees up to her chest. Anya is another one of the young models living here in the apartments the agency has set up. It’s something that happens in the fashion centers of the world — Paris, London, Milan, and Niihama, which has become the runway capital of Japan after the loss of old Tokyo to a nuclear strike in WWIII. Modeling agencies act in loco parentis to young, underage models whose parents can’t or won’t accompany them out on work. There are also older models from foreign countries, or from poorer parts of the country, who can’t afford housing on their own. That’s where they all go. It’s like being in reform school, Proto thinks. He’s made several friends here, all young people in his cover identity’s situation. They are all young and beautiful, and either want to be famous or need the money desperately, which is why they haven’t quit yet. 

“Anyone else coming?” Proto asks Anya, and she nods once. 

“Kaori might be coming too, and Anna. Any of the guys?” Anya doesn’t look like much right now, bundled up in an oversized hoodie as she is. She’s got the hood pulled up, too, which hides part of her face. It’s typical casual attire for the cooling autumn days, but Proto knows Anya wears this thing all the time because she’s constantly cold. The only time she goes without it is when she’s on the job, or working out. Strange for a young woman from the Northern Islands, but he also knows she’s hovering right on the edge of an eating disorder, as many of the young models are.

“Not today,” Proto says, “it’s just me.” There’s more scrabbling, and Proto risks a backward glance over the side of the air conditioning unit to check out who’s coming. It’s the other two women Anya has mentioned, Kaori, and Anna. The both of them are wearing comfortable, unpretentious athleisure clothing, leggings and puffy jackets or hoodies, just as Anya is. 

“Hey, Souji,” Kaori says in greeting, as she sits down in front of Anya, facing them, and Anna, her roommate, joins them. 

“Hi!” Anna waves chirpily, but she’s a little nervous about their clandestine meeting, glancing constantly at the window she and Kaori both climbed out of. It’s not supposed to be unlocked, it’s just that the building ventilation is inadequate for a population of about twenty-five chain-smoking young models, who use the nicotine to suppress hunger pangs, and therefore that window is always left accessible for someone sneaking a smoke break. 

Proto pushes the hood of Souji’s oversized college hoodie back, and reaches beside him to grab the saggy old backpack between him and Anya. Its contents rustle as he hauls it up, and it clanks a bit when he puts it down in his lap. The three women with him watch avidly as he unzips it and reaches in to haul out two packs of cookies and a six-pack of canned green tea.

“Tea party, tea party!” Kaori squeaks, and she claps her hands in delight. “Souji, if I knew you better I’d kiss you.”

“You can kiss me now,” Proto says, because Souji would, “I don’t mind strange girls kissing me.” Kaori and Anna giggle at that, but Anya gives him a gentle swat on the arm as he reaches behind him to pull out his multitool, and flips out one of the knife blades to open the packaging with. He passes cans of tea out with a silent solemnity more appropriate to a more formal gathering. The packs of cookies are passed around after everyone has a drink in hand, and each participant takes a cookie from the pack being passed, and then passes it clockwise. 

“It’s nice you're doing this,” Anna says, as Kaori munches, “but I still don’t know how you’re evading bag search when you come in.” The bag search is ostensibly to prevent young models from developing drug habits, but in practice, anyone coming back with high-calorie snacks on a regular basis gets written down and subtly shamed by instructors. It’s enforced a little more laxly with the guys, who are expected to work out more, but what Proto has routinely managed to smuggle back has generally been far beyond the usual overlooked amount. That’s, of course, because most young models don’t have Section 9 training. 

“I uh, had a sideline when I was at Berkeley,” Proto says, as Souji.

“It was weed, wasn’t it?” Anya asks. “Funny, I didn’t have you down as a stoner.”

“You never want to sample your own product,” Proto says sagely. Anya has let her hood fall back as she nibbles on cream-filled cookies, and that reveals the startling bone structure of her face, her broad, wide cheekbones tapering down to an angular, elegant jaw, the slight tilt of her gold-green eyes setting off a narrow, delicate nose. Kaori and Anna are similarly beautiful — Kaori has the classic features of the idealized Japanese beauty, with large dark eyes, straight black hair, and a small, dainty mouth, and Anna has deep auburn hair and porcelain skin, and a fine-boned build. Anna is also the shortest of the girls in the current cohort, at 1.7m, but carries herself with a poise and grace that makes her seem taller.

“You’re sampling your goods now, though,” Anna says, through a mouthful of crumbs, and then she giggles again, sucks down a hasty drink of green tea so she won’t choke doing so. Anna’s Japanese is still slightly accented. Like Souji, she’s a recent addition to the current cohort, and Proto has learned in previous conversations that she’s from Ukraine, from a tiny village on the Dnieper. Proto has managed to charm her greatly by attempting to speak some Ukrainian. He could have downloaded a software package for a secretary android and been fluent enough for business in swift order, but Souji would mangle it somewhat, and so he has. 

Proto is organizing these little tea parties for several reasons: Firstly, ingratiating yourself with the group you’re embedded in is an excellent way to gather intelligence, and frankly, smuggling cookies past bag check is a truly trivial and harmless way of doing so. Secondly, the healthy, calorie-restricted meals prepared for the models here are inadequate to meet Proto’s energy needs, even if he isn’t doing anything particularly intense right now. Souji’s habits consist mostly of reading, loafing, and the occasional jog, if only because he already has a model-perfect physique, courtesy of the tissue sculptors that gave Proto his current body. Thirdly, Souji is a young, intelligent and slightly rebellious young man who has just spent four years in the Russo-American Alliance, in a university that’s known to be left of center, and he would balk at the “rabbit food” he’s being served in exactly this way. 

“You uh, have any of the green stuff left, Souji?” Kaori asks. She brushes absently at the front of her t-shirt. 

“Heck no,” Proto says. “I couldn’t have gotten past immigration with any of that, and the drug laws here are seriously scary.” Which they are. 

“Aw. I always wanted to give it a try,” Kaori says, disappointed.

“Can’t help you there.” Proto says, which is true. Well, he probably could get hold of illicit drugs effortlessly, but it would be a breach of ethics and regulations to hand them out just like this. He’s not going to report Kaori’s interest either, because while he’s an undercover officer, he’s also not an asshole.

Anna cranes her neck to the side, and Proto peeks out behind the AC unit again to find another of the young models popping the window open for a smoke break. It’s Markus, one of the other young men, and Proto gives him a quick wave, beckoning him over to the “tea party”. Markus climbs out of the window, lit cigarette in hand, and saunters over to join them. He leans back against a raised vent and accepts the offer of a can of green tea, but shakes his head when Anna offers him a cookie. 

“Danke schön,” Markus says, after he pops open his can of green tea. He’s tall and lean like most of the guys are, with a mane of crisply waved hair currently bleached into a fashionable ash-gray ombre, and a chin you could black your eye on. Markus is a hot commodity right now, and there are rumors that he might be moving out of the shared housing soon, to share a smaller apartment with two or three more seasoned runway models. 

“Wie gehts?” Proto asks him. Souji did two semesters of German at college, and would speak it with reasonable fluency at an intermediate level. 

“So la la. It goes,” he clarifies, for the benefit of the others, who do not speak German, and then takes a long drag on his cigarette, squinting a little as he exhales. Proto doesn’t know much of Markus’ background, or how he came to work in Niihama City, but he’s generally patient and indulgent with the younger, newer models in the building, and he keeps his mouth shut about illicit little things like Proto’s tea parties. Out of the five people sitting on the roof right now, Anya and Markus are the senior-most in the women’s and men’s wing of the building, and between the both of them, they have managed to warn Souji about a number of missing stairs — covert hazards that stay in place because people don’t talk about these things. 

Which photographers can be trusted to work with you alone, which can’t. Which industry insiders have trouble keeping their hands to themselves. Who you absolutely can’t trust to watch your drink when you need to go to the bathroom at a party. 

It’s obvious that a few of these young models attempt to take care of each other even in the strict order of their lives. Humans reach out for connections with each other. Oh, sure, there are petty rivalries, and two of the girls got disciplined and moved elsewhere after a face-scratching fight broke out over shared bathroom access, but according to Anna, that was only a culmination of a long few months of mutual hatred. But good people exist even in the cutthroat world of fashion, which angers Proto even more, when he considers how precariously his young new acquaintances live. 

They polish off one pack of cookies between the four of them. Markus, who is a fan of intermittent fasting, is eating no solid food today. That leaves one pack of cookies and a can of tea left. Proto pulls a spare plastic bag from his backpack and wraps both up, unzips Souji’s school hoodie to take it off. He then squirms out of his oversized t-shirt, baring his temporarily tanned, freckled chest, and wraps the package untidily up in his t-shirt, before he pulls his hoodie back on and zips it up. That should disguise the package shape well enough, and nobody’s going to notice he’s missing his t-shirt under the zipped-up hoodie.

“Gott im Himmel,” Markus breathes with quiet admiration, “it’s like I’m getting lessons from a master smuggler right here.”

“None of you have ever had to smuggle alcohol into an American college dorm, I don’t think,” Proto says as Souji. “You know what the drinking age in the Russo-American Alliance is? Twenty-one.” Which is also true, and one of his convenient explanations for why he’s so good at sneaking things around. 

“I know, right?” Anya says, with a little laugh. “And you don’t even expect anything for these little tea parties. Some guys I know would probably be rolling in pussy right now, if they were doing something like this. Or ass, if that’s what you’re into.” 

“I know this is really stupid seeing as I signed up for this and I can quit and go back to my parents any time,” Proto says with a shrug, “but I really hate people telling me I can’t eat this, or I can’t eat that. I can’t live like this.”

“Damned naturally skinny people and their overactive metabolisms,” Kaori sniffs. They all brush the crumbs off their faces and their clothes, checking each other carefully to make sure that no traces of their illicit indulgences are left behind, and then Anya and Anna light up as well, to camouflage the reason they’re hanging out here.

Proto takes the empty cookie packaging and the empty green tea cans, and bundles them in the original bag they came in. He then walks over to the edge of the roof, looking down an alleyway straight at a pile of fat black garbage bags, bloated and full of trash. He then drops his own plastic bag over the side, and lets gravity take care of the rest. It bounces once, and then settles into the rest of the garbage. Then he pulls a pack of menthols and a lighter from the pocket of his hoodie, lights up as well. 

Proto personally doesn’t smoke, and finds it unpleasant, since he gets no benefit from the nicotine, but Souji would, so he does. He checks Souji’s watch while he puffs — it’s nothing like Proto’s own 80-year-old vintage Swiss watch, being a mass-market plastic digital, but it’s one of those shockproof watches that boasts excellent water resistance, something an athletic young man who went to college in Berkeley would wear. 

“Shit,” Proto says, “you came out to get me, didn’t you, Markus?” Proto knows full well that he’s scheduled to leave for a shoot in what will be fifteen minutes, but Souji has a slight disregard for things like schedules and punctuality.

“Yeah,” Markus lights another cigarette from the smoldering butt of his first, blows a smoke ring that is, sadly, tugged away by the brisk wind. “GQ Japan, suit feature, you and me and Riki at Daichi Hamada’s studio, in case you haven’t checked your schedule, because you have a habit of not doing that, dumbass. Make sure you brush your teeth and change before you go, Hamada hates the smell of cigarette smoke.”

“Ugh, creep,” Anya mutters. Hamada is one of the missing stairs Proto has been warned about, a fairly minor one in the grand scheme of things, since he doesn’t tend to do more than the occasional grope, and none of the men have anything to worry about him. There are rumors that he’s placed a hidden camera in the changing room in his studio, however, and that’s something Proto’s going to follow up on today. 

“If it’s in fifteen minutes,” Proto says, pinching his half-smoked cigarette out — it doesn’t hurt if you do it fast enough, he learned from Paz, who’s a chain smoker, “then what the fuck are you doing still smoking here with us?”

“This is my last week living here,” Markus says with a grin. “So I’m going to enjoy this cigarette and make that asshole wait a little bit, give you and Riki cover if you’re late, too. About the last thing I can do for you all. And Souji, get a fucking personal assistant app and make it remind you of your appointments. Frequent tardies will kill your career, at this point.”

“Sure, Dad.” Proto pockets the half-smoked length of his cigarette, hauls his backpack over his shoulder, and waves a casual goodbye to the girls. “Gotta run, Markus says so.”

“See you later, Souji,” Anya waves back. He then crosses the short distance back to the closed but unlocked window, shoves it up, and climbs back into the building. 

— 

Proto is fortunately capable of brushing his teeth at record speed, and he does so while also giving his hair a spray of dry shampoo, to both clean and deodorize it. Then he rinses his mouth out, runs a brush through his hair, and heads into his room to change. The young models each have a room to their own, but they share bathrooms with a single neighbor in a jack-and-jill setup. Proto currently has his bathroom to himself because the room next to his is empty, but in practice some of the models use that room for personal reasons, and therefore he sometimes has to knock on his own bathroom door before entering to make sure people aren’t having sex in the next room with the bathroom door still open.

His quarters are spare but comfortable, quite like a college dormitory. There’s a single bed with some storage underneath for sheets and pillowcases, and a roomy closet. There’s a single small desk for personal use: Souji has some of his paper books arranged between minimal metal bookends, on top of it, and his portable terminal. There’s a cactus on the windowsill that Proto spotted at a downtown store that he brought back to give Souji’s room a little more life. It’s small, sitting in a pot that is no more than 7cm wide, and is covered with a thick layer of wooly hair that disguises some very sharp spines. Proto looked up the kind of cactus it was the day after he installed it in his room, and found it to be an “old man cactus”, cephalocereus senilis. Souji calls it “The Professor”, whenever anyone has seen fit to comment on it, but Proto has personally nicknamed it The Chief. 

He changes out of his current attire, leaving his clothes laid out on the bed to air, and also because Souji Kondo is the kind of guy who leaves his clothes lying around if he isn’t expecting visitors, and sometimes, even if he is. The contraband in his backpack goes under the bed, tucked behind some folded sheets, and he changes into a spare pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt, pulls on an Oxford shirt over it. He doesn’t have to be dressed fancily or well, given that stylists will be dressing him during the shoot, and he packs Souji’s current book in his backpack, along with some other incidentals —cigs and lighter, a small bottle of cologne, a pack of makeup wipes and a makeup bag, a stick of blemish cream for Souji’s nonexistent blemishes, and Souji’s phone and a charger for it. His multitool sits on his belt, and Souji’s keys and wallet are transferred effortlessly from the old pair of jeans to his current pair, and then he turns out the light and leaves the room, locking the door behind him. 

— 

A lot of laymen, Proto included, assumed that models just show up to a shoot, change, get photos taken, and then leave. That is emphatically not the case, as Proto has learned in the last month. Much of the time they show up hours early so the hairdresser and makeup artists can work on them, and then are in some cases stitched or clipped into the garments they’re showing off depending on how things are going to fit, which is why models tend to look so good in the garments they’re modeling. It’s not even because they’re skinny and things fit them perfectly, as much as the fact that you generally see a photograph from one angle only, and there’s a lot of trickery happening where you can’t see to make a garment look the way it does. 

It’s fortunate, then, that Souji and the others are modeling off-rack suits, which fit standard sizes, and Proto’s own measurements are right there on Souji’s comp cards, so stylists can obtain clothes that will fit them properly. Souji submits to the attentions of the hairdresser hired for this shoot, and his long hair is brushed out and styled with a variety of products — a hair milk, like a lighter mousse, some sea salt spray, and a touch of wax to prevent flyaways. The hairdresser then braids his hair, braiding leather thongs into it to add texture, and she styles the shorter locks framing his face with a touch more product. 

The makeup artist begins to work on him once the hairdresser lets him up, and she tips his face up and back to bare his neck, begins applying primer to Souji’s tanned, freckled face. “I love freckles, yours are so cute,” she tells him as she begins to work. “I probably don’t want to use anything too opaque on you, so we can show them off. Where are you from?” 

“My mom’s Japanese-American,” Proto says, “most of her family are still there. But I’m from Fukuoka.”

“Oh, are her folks from Hawaii?” That’s the Japanese stereotype of where Japanese-American people largely come from, and also because Hawaii feels more exotic than most other places in the former United States. 

“No, San Francisco,” Proto says in reply. The makeup artist paints him up with a light, sheer foundation, blending highlights and contouring in seamlessly with delicate touches of a makeup sponge, and she follows that with a translucent powder. She applies a subtle, translucent eyeliner and mascara, brushes Souji’s eyebrows to align the hairs, and emphasizes the bone structure of his orbits with light passes of a neutral eyeshadow. 

“Give me a good pout,” she says as she primes his lips with a sticky, transparent lip pencil, and then applies a nude lipstick afterwards. They’re going for a natural look today, but Proto has learned at this point that it can take quite a bit of work to create that unobtrusive look. He’s not sure he’s used to the way makeup feels on his face, but it’s not a bad or wrong sensation, either. Just a reminder of the mask he’s supposed to wear to keep character. 

The suits are all on rolling racks divided by hanging placards with each model’s name on it, and each set of clothes has been arranged already by the stylist, shirt behind the suit hanger. All the accessories — socks, shoes, underwear, neckties, watches and cufflinks, those go in a hanging organizer with multiple pockets, which Proto understands is more of a theatrical thing, but the current stylist for this shoot, Ayano Mizuki, started out as a costume design student before she started working in the fashion industry. Souji’s outfits are all numbered by the order he’s going to wear them in, which is convenient. 

Proto changes into the first suit in a changing room blocked off with an opaque curtain, and he finds the hidden camera almost instantly. Its miniscule lens is hidden behind an artfully cracked piece of molding. Proto reaches out to it on the studio’s network, cracks the pitiful security on it with barely an effort as he takes Souji’s clothes and shoes off, and he finds the computer the camera’s videos are being stored on as he pulls his underwear on. It’s not currently recording, which makes sense, since Daichi Hamada tends to target only female models with his unwanted advances. Proto does not delete any of the files he comes across, because it could be tracked back to him, but he injects a virus into the system with a thought. 

“Reiko, Saito,” he says silently on an encrypted cybercomm channel, “you’ll start receiving uploads starting in about five minutes, giving you access to a private network belonging to the photographer Daichi Hamada. He’s got hidden cameras in his studio changing rooms.” 

“Creepy,” Reiko says in reply. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, they aren’t recording right now because he’s not into naked men.” Proto says, as he buttons his shirt. “Forward the info to Ishikawa and Borma, see if they can do a dive and see if there’s any connection to the Nakagawa case. He might just be a garden-variety creep, but that’s still a sex offense and I really wouldn’t mind seeing Niihama PD deal with him after we get to the bottom of this case.” 

“Good idea, gets us some goodwill if we just pass them the evidence gift-wrapped for their use.” That’s Saito. 

“That’s what I was thinking,” Proto says, as he tugs his trousers up over his hips and fastens his fly. “Give me updates later.” 

“Will do,” Saito says, and Proto cuts the connection as he finishes dressing, checks himself in the mirror. He’s modeling a dark green Armani three-piece suit in a cashmere and mohair blend, but it’s an off-rack item and it fits him well, as opposed to perfectly. The dress shoes he slides his feet into are new, and therefore a little tight, but not too bad. He puts the Breitling watch meant to go with this outfit on, and steps out, leaving his necktie and cufflinks off. The stylist’s assistants will help him with those. 

No, what he’s still trying to get used to is seeing Souji’s face in the mirror. It’s still his flesh and bone structure under the tan and freckles, but Souji’s hair has been subjected to a layered, shaggy cut that adds more volume to his long hair. He’s been allowed to keep his dark roots, though, because it highlights the artifice in his supposed natural beauty, and because the look is currently fashionable in the West. One of the assistants pulls Proto gently aside so Riki can use the changing booth, and she flips his collar expertly up and tugs his necktie around his neck, finishing a fat half-Windsor knot in the blink of an eye. 

“Do you need help with those cufflinks?” she asks, and Proto nods. Souji would. They’re beautiful things, fat oval cabochons of mutton-fat jade set in a thin gold rim, but also entirely too flashy for the image Proto wants to evoke, which is why he opts to have most of his shirts made with button-up cuffs instead of French cuffs. Mizuki, the stylist, gives Proto a quick all-over assessment before she waves to another one of her assistants, who brings a prop… or several props, to be particular, and Proto blinks as she buckles it around his narrow hips. 

“Mr. Hamada wants to go with a samurai of modern Japan theme, today,” Mizuki says with an insincere smile, and Proto reaches down to settle the scabbards hanging from the broad leather belt. “And unbutton the bottom button on your waistcoat, nobody likes a show-off. We know you’re skinny, you don’t have to rub it in our faces.” Proto knows you don’t generally fasten that button of your waistcoat, but Souji wouldn’t. The assistant stylist who helped him with the sword belt performs the operation swiftly, and efficiently, and then a photographer’s assistant herds him towards the broad plinth in the middle of the studio. 

—

Proto stands and poses while Hamada takes photo after photo with a Hasselblad, the lighting simple, diffused. “More seriousness,” Hamada says, “stop being such a vacant-faced himbo. Samurai felt passion, so show it.”

Proto is not the world’s most demonstrative person, and he realizes he’s going to be yelled at the whole afternoon, possibly into the evening too, if he doesn’t give Hamada what he wants, visually. So he thinks of the case he’s working on and the horrors that Mikio Nakagawa experienced, tightens his fingers on the grip of the prop katana. 

“Good, good, brood, yes,” Hamada says, coaxing. And then he steps away abruptly, leaving Proto waiting for a few seconds, until his assistant beckons him off the plinth. 

It’s time for someone else’s turn. Which means Proto is going to have to change into suit #2. The stylist’s assistant takes the swords off him, and he hands his cufflinks to another, lets her take his necktie and coat off him before he’s handed the hangers holding his next change of clothes. 

Markus is standing on the plinth when Proto comes out of the changing room. He’s wearing a hard-looking midnight blue Burberry with a blue and white haori hanging off one shoulder, and one of the photographer’s assistants has turned a fan on to stir the garment in a convenient wind as Hamada takes shot after shot. Proto hasn’t seen Markus model in the flesh before, only in runway videos and on printed pages, but he starts to understand why Markus is rising fast in the Niihama City runway scene. There’s a broad streak of thespian in him, and a raw charisma that he seems to be able to project past his skin, something that crackles in the air as the photographic lights catch his pale blue eyes. 

That’s charisma Proto doesn’t exactly have, even if he is effortlessly handsome, himself, and frankly, he’s not sure if he wants it, either, if only because part of the point of his job is that he’s a quiet, unobtrusive individual whenever he’s not being someone else. Even his dress sense, immaculate as it is, is designed to deflect rather than stand out, because people will take a look at him and assume he’s a high-level secretary, well-put-together, and a little too in love with his reflection in the mirror, which is very useful when you want people to ignore the fact that you’re also an armed, empowered law officer. 

—

The sun has started to set outside by the time they’re allowed to take a break, and Proto lights up another one of Souji’s menthols as he crouches low, his back against the outside wall of Hamada’s studio. Riki ducks out next with a cigarette out and unlit, and a bottle of mineral water in his hand, and Proto holds his own lighter out, lights the smoke for him so he won’t have to put his drink down. 

“Thanks,” Riki says. Riki’s the youngest out of the three models on this shoot, a mere 18, scouted straight out of high school while he was walking home past a location shoot one day. He’s not grown fully into himself yet. No, Proto thinks, it’ll be another year or two before his bone structure is fully developed, and he’ll gain a few centimetres of height in the process. At rest he looks slightly awkward, almost gangly, with a length of limb that seems slightly disproportionate given his scant, angular build. 

Proto knows Riki has only taken this job because his parents are saddled with debt from his father’s bad investments, and he’s willing to spend a few years of his youth in an effort to help out. It’s something he mentioned during one of their illicit snack breaks out on the rooftop. “I know I’m no shining paragon of behavior,” Proto says as Riki attempts a smoke ring in imitation of Markus, fails miserably, “but aren’t you a little young to be smoking?”

“Fuck you,” Riki says with a cheerful laugh, “I’m 18, I’m an adult. I can do what I want. But let me tell you this, this cigarette doesn’t even taste as good as knowing how pissy Hamada will be when we get back inside smelling like this.” 

They both share a little chuckle at that, and Riki waves as Markus comes out of the studio. “Delinquents,” he says with false sternness, “look at the two of you, squatting like that.” He pulls a pack of cigarettes from a shirt pocket and taps one out, holds it between his lips and lights it, and the cherry flares brightly in the evening light as he takes a long, grateful drag. “There’s a party tonight, by the way.” 

“There’s always a party,” Proto says, because it’s true, there is. Souji isn’t really a club type of party boy, but he’s gone along with other models to scope out the scene, as one will, to give Proto an excuse to talk to people and size them up. He taps the ash of his cigarette off expertly in imitation of Paz, who’s always been a very stylish smoker. 

“Yeah, but you should go, the both of you, because there are going to be industry people there,” Markus suggests. “It’s being held at The Operation tonight, in one of their private rooms.” 

“Yeah? Who’s going to be there?” Riki asks, excited despite himself. He’s so very young, and Proto hopes desperately that he won’t get himself into trouble if he goes. 

“Couple of the fashion writers from GQ, the local Vogue women’s editor, we’ve got a couple photographers in from New York, too,” Markus says, checking his phone. “Hamada’s not going, too many of us guys there thanks to the GQ crowd, plus everyone’s going to be smoking. But I think Imai and Kikuchi might be there too. Good chance to make connections, plus it’s not like either of you is underage, you don’t even have to make a curfew.” Tetsuya Imai and Masaki Kikuchi are both prominent fashion photographers on the Niihama City scene, and Proto has been warned about Kikuchi in particular, and his taste for young, pretty men.

Proto fishes out Souji’s phone and flips it open. “All right, Markus, you’ve got me. Send the details? Any dress code?” 

“No real dress code, it’s The Operation, but you wanna wear something nicer than your surfer boy chic, okay, Souji?” Markus says with a wink. “Given that Kikuchi is there… wear tight pants. Ones they can tell your religion in. That’ll get his attention if you’re okay with getting it that way.”

“Gross,” Riki laughs, but he’s also got his phone out and ready to receive the invitation that Markus is going to forward to them. 

“Be realistic, man,” Markus shrugs. “They hire us to be pretty, and I happen to need to get laid every once in a while, even if your balls haven’t descended yet. Might as well make use of it.”

Riki looks distinctively sceptical at that notion. “Guys are gross, especially old ones, and Kikuchi, he’s what, pushing eight hundred?” 

“Oh, right, I forget you’re straight.” Markus gives Riki a little smirk. “It’s hard to tell when you’re as pretty as a girl.” 

“Fuck you, asshole,” Riki says with a laugh. 

“Why, sure, you offering?” Markus asks Riki, who replies with an upraised middle finger.

— 

It’s past 11PM by the time Proto and Riki get to the party in their cab, but like many such events it’s only just starting. The Operation is a very fashionable nightspot, for all that the staff are all dressed in lab coats and nurse outfits, and many of the signature drinks revolve around medical themes. There’s even an oxygen and IV bar for customers who have imbibed a little bit too much and need Ringer’s lactate with additional Vitamin B12 to stave off a hangover before they go home. 

There’s a long line outside as the bouncers exclude all but the most fashionable and beautiful people, but Proto and Riki get in by flashing the QR code invites on their phones. The bouncers’ prosthetic eyes scan the codes automatically and they’re waved in free of charge, to the grumbles and mutters of the patrons waiting outside.

Inside, The Operation is like many other dance clubs. Conversations are almost impossible outside the private party rooms because a constant pounding beat of dance music blares from the sound system, and strobes and colored lights turn the lighted dance floor into a seizure hazard. Proto walks up to the bar with Souji’s casual confidence and yells his order at a bartender just to have it heard. He pays, waits a few minutes, and then saunters towards the private room with a Milk of Amnesia in his hand. That’s a medical nickname for propofol, an extremely powerful sedative used to begin the process of general anesthesia. 

Proto’s opted for the Milk of Amnesia mostly because it’s actually the tastiest-looking cocktail on the list, being based heavily on cream liqueur. It’s a potent blend of Bailey’s and creme de cassis, spiked with aromatic apple brandy, topped with heavy cream, and it’s packed with fat, sugar, and alcohol, which Proto’s synthetic metabolism turns straight into energy. Some of the other field officers at Section 9 have joked about how he has the drinking tastes of a 19-year-old kogal, and it’s a fact he doesn’t dispute, but he’s also the one who can, if he wants to, drink an elephant under the table because alcohol does not have a depressant effect on him. In actuality he’s just going to nurse this drink all night long, unless he needs to convince someone he’s drunk.

The private event room is manned by yet another bouncer, who checks the QR invite on Proto’s phone yet again before the door is opened to him. It’s soundproofed, which means the noise from outside drops sharply when the door shuts behind him. There’s still plenty of noise from the various conversations going on inside, of course, but it’s actually tolerable as opposed to painful. The lighting in here is gentle, warm and low-ish, and seats and tables have been arranged for the comfort of the many little knots of people chatting with each other. 

Proto catches Markus standing near the back of the room, next to sliding doors that open out into a small ornamental garden — a good place to hang out and smoke, and have quiet conversations. It’s obvious that several of the partygoers have already used the garden for that purpose, because his enhanced vision catches the glow of their cigarettes in the dark. Markus is chatting with two older men, one he recognizes as the fashion photographer Masaki Kikuchi. He doesn’t recognize the other man, but he gets to approach them for introductions when Markus waves him over. 

“Hey, Souji, let me introduce you. This is Souji Kondo, he’s one of the newer guys at my agency, and Souji, this is Masaki Kikuchi, and this is Soren Taylor. Soren just flew in yesterday, from New York.” Markus is speaking fluent English, and Proto knows exactly why he’s been introduced to these two: because he, as Souji, also speaks excellent English, and would be a decently entertaining conversationalist for a fashion photographer from New York. 

“Pleased to meet you,” Proto says, and he switches his drink from his right hand to his left, shakes. His fingers are cold and damp from condensation, but neither man seems to mind. He’s dressed exactly as Markus has advised him to, in a half-open silk shirt and jeans so tight he’s had to keep his keys and wallet in the pocket of his sport coat. To his private amusement, Kikuchi’s gaze is fixed already somewhere around his belt buckle, following him around as though it were welded there.

“Your English is really good,” Taylor says, giving him a broad wink, “are you a native of Niihama City?” 

“Souji here went to college in Berkeley,” Markus supplies. “What were you, a psych major?” 

“Psychology, yes,” Proto says, after a sip of his drink. “My mother’s family is from San Francisco, but my parents currently live in Fukuoka.” 

“Oh, very nice, so you were brought up bilingual, I guess,” Taylor suggests. He isn’t as overt in his stare as Kikuchi is, and Proto reads a general sense of relief that he’s met someone else he can speak English to here in Niihama City. 

“Yeah, and Markus will testify that I also speak bad German.” They all share a laugh at that tired little joke. Proto spots Riki coming in the private room after that, a drink in his hand, but he makes a beeline straight to a table of female models, who he presumably knows, and sits down with them. A sweaty hand slides up the back of Proto’s coat to press against the small of his back, sliding briefly beneath his belt and the waistband of his jeans. It’s Kikuchi, and Proto lets him get away with copping a feel, at least this once, if only because it would be convenient to get him alone at some future point and ask him a few questions, see if he knows anything about what happened to Mikio Nakagawa. 

Proto circulates around the room after that, chatting and occasionally flirting with others. Kikuchi seems to have switched his focus to another guest, a male model from rival agency, and Proto sighs with silent relief when he spots Riki still with the bevy of female models he seems to have embedded himself with. He’s not strictly responsible for the kid, but his youth and naivete makes Proto worried, the same way one would feel about tossing a lamb with a steak tied around its neck into a pit of hungry alligators. 

Kikuchi’s a creep, Proto thinks, but he’s not sure if he’s the kind of creep who will virtually rape a person’s Ghost. Sometimes it’s easy to expect the worst out of people who are merely pettily evil. No, the real monsters are rather better at hiding in plain sight, that’s something he knows from his training at Section 9. It’s time for Souji to take a smoke break outside, which will also allow him to tune his hearing up and see if he can eavesdrop on any of the conversations going on outside. He slips out the sliding door and pulls out a cigarette, prepares to put his drink down to light up when someone sidles up to him, proffers their lighter instead. 

It’s Soren Taylor. 

“Thank you,” Proto says, after accepting the light. 

“I know what Markus is trying to do, you know,” Taylor says, apropos of nothing as they stand side by side, Proto smoking and Taylor not. 

“Yeah?” Proto asks. He has an idea too, but it’s easier to feign vacancy and let people feed their ideas to you. 

Taylor laughs, a bleak cynical sound. “He’s trying to give you a leg up with your career, and he’s also probably hoping I feel grateful that he’s found me a cute date while I’m over here.”

“Connections have to be made,” Proto shrugs. He doesn’t really feel offended by Markus’ attempts to social engineer — it’s something many people do on a day-to-day basis. It’s just rather more overt here, stripped of much of the polite interest and deflection that happens typically.

“They do,” Taylor agrees, “I just don’t want you to get this wrong. I know it’s a common practice everywhere, but I don’t sleep with models, even if you are a prime piece of ass.”

Proto lets out a small chuckle. That’s not how he’s ever thought of himself, but it would be more graceful to accept the compliment. “Thank you, I’m flattered.”

“I mean it’s not that I’d be opposed to it on a personal level, but that leads to all kinds of desperate people throwing themselves at me trying to get a break. It’s kind of tedious. Also depressing. And I’m not as young as I used to be.” Taylor feels to Proto like a man who’s learned the lesson that having power means that you’re going to be a stepping stone for everyone who has less power than you, and learned it the hard way, too.

“No, I understand,” Proto says after mulling it over for a second or two, punctuates his sentence with a sip of his drink. “I mostly thought it’d be nice if you had someone to speak English to at the party.”

“I do like that, yes, and I will remember you for that, you know. Got a comp card on you?”

“Always.” Proto fishes a comp card out of an inside coat pocket. It’s got a good headshot of him as Souji on one side with Souji’s name under it, and the reverse holds several other full-length photos and Souji’s measurements and agency contact info. 

Taylor takes it, glances at it and nods, before pocketing it. “Good boy,” he says. “Mind doing some non-fashion modeling in the future?” 

“Maybe.” Proto shrugs in Souji’s noncommittal way, takes another drag on his cigarette. “It depends on my schedule.” 

“Well, maybe I’ll call you the next time I’m in Japan again, since my itinerary is already set for this trip.” says Taylor.

“Thanks.” Proto drops his cigarette butt to the ground, grinds it out under a heel. 

“Thanks for not being a prima donna,” Taylor says, and he retreats back into the party room, leaving Proto alone with the night. 

— 

Proto hasn’t been working on this case alone, of course. Section 9 has managed to covertly acquire tissue samples from every recent suicide connected to the Niihama City fashion industry and associated party scene, and two other deaths have jumped out, besides Mikio Nakagawa’s botched attempt. There’s no solid proof besides traces of somnacin in their body fat, since the memories in a cyberbrain are generally only accessible before brain death has occurred. Exhumations are uncommon in a country so densely populated that people are routinely cremated instead of buried, and would have attracted public attention in any case, so both of these decedents killed themselves after the Nakagawa incident, and not before. 

This means, of course, that there could be more victims of Ghost-rape out there, just unnoticed and unremarked upon. 

The second victim Section 9 has managed to confirm isn’t a model, but a young stylist’s assistant, 20 years old, by the name of Naoko Harada, who climbed over the edge of her balcony. She left no journal or note behind, but investigators had determined that she had been working over 60 hours a week without overtime pay, and chalked her mental breakdown down to work stress. Freelancers and contract workers aren’t as protected as salaried full-time workers, which meant ultimately that nobody was blamed for her death, which occurred 10 days after Nakagawa’s suicide attempt. 

The third confirmed victim died two weeks ago, but not in Japan, and his tissue samples had only been tested by Section 9 three days ago. Proto had heard of his death through the agency rumor mill and forwarded it to Section 9 for follow-up, which was a good idea, as it turned out. The third victim is another young model, Dexter Wang, who split his time between the Taipei and Niihama runway scenes, and he had been found in his apartment with a needle in his arm, dead from a massive heroin OD. 

Proto finds Wang’s death highly suspicious — he’s spent enough time with other models to know that the heroin addicts among them don’t like to use visible veins to shoot up, not especially those in the forearm. Some users will in fact paint their toenails dark colors so they can shoot discreetly up under the nail, and not have the tracks visible in a swimsuit shoot. Unfortunately, the crime scene is not in a Japanese jurisdiction, which means the most that Section 9 can do on an official level is send a field officer to inquire discreetly. They can do other things unofficially, of course, like hack the Taipei police servers to get copies of the investigative reports and forensic findings, which Borma and Ishikawa have already done. Unfortunately the local cops have been entirely too willing to take Wang’s death on face value, and chances are they’ll classify it as an accidental OD. 

Wang left Niihama City for Taipei three weeks ago, and Paz and a new recruit, Kuro, are currently in Taiwan working on reconstructing his itinerary and inveigling IR records from the Taipei end, all unofficially of course. They’re how Section 9 managed to get their hands on Wang’s tissue samples, and Proto suspects that there’s going to be a story about how they did it. Things would be easier if they could just use Interpol assets and structure, but the Chief is ordering all the investigators on this case to play things close to their chests for now, because he certainly does not want whatever the perps are using to rape people’s Ghosts to go public — not even to another ostensibly friendly government. The ramifications could be beyond horrific. 

All this weighs heavily on Proto’s mind as he whiles away the cab ride back to the building he lives in. He lets himself in with a keycard at the front door, and nods tiredly to the unarmed security guard at the foyer facing the elevator lobby, turns out the innocuous contents of Souji’s pockets to prove he isn’t smuggling drugs back in an obvious fashion. Keys, a phone, a wallet, several loose name cards. Breath mints, condoms, eyedrops. It’s 3 AM in the morning, so his possessions are glanced over with the most cursory glance, and he puts everything back where it should be.

His keycard lets him past the locked door separating the models’ housing from the rest of the building, and he’s about to turn around and head for the men’s wing when someone spots him in the common room and calls out to him. 

“Souji!” It’s Anya, and she sounds worried. Frightened, even. Proto turns around, remembering to look like someone who’s had a few to drink, and finds her standing at the entrance of the women’s wing with one of the other girls, whose name he does not immediately place. “You’re just the man I want to see right now.” They’re both barely dressed, presumably for bed — Anya’s in a tank top and panties, and the other girl is wearing an oversized tee shirt, but many models don’t really care about being half-dressed around others. 

“What’s wrong?” Proto asks. A little of his own personality leaks through the mask, but that’s because he hasn’t actually had time to think of what Souji would do if someone else were in trouble. 

“Midori’s roommate has been hogging the bathroom tonight, and she came in to complain to me and borrow mine. I mean, it happens, right?” Anya says.

Proto nods. “Right.” That itself is not concerning, but clearly something is. 

“Well, Midori woke up to pee just now, and Shizu’s still in there, so she came to borrow my bathroom again,” Anya explains. “The door’s locked from Midori’s side, and Shizu’s room door is also locked. I don’t know if she actually came out. You carry one of those swiss army knife things, right?” 

“My multitool?” Proto reaches behind him, to the custom leather sheath he carries his multitool in. “Yes. You want me to break in?” That’s really something he didn’t anticipate Souji having to do, and he thinks of how a competent, if shallow 22-year-old would handle a situation like this. 

“Calling in for a spare key is going to take too long — they’ll only do it during 9 to 5 hours, what if something’s wrong?” Midori asks. 

“I don’t know if I can, but I can try.” Proto says, because Souji wouldn’t know that, either. He’d focus on covering his ass, though, if he were asked to break into a woman’s bathroom while she’s still in it. “Can you two at least be witnesses so you can say I’m not doing it to be a pervert?” 

“Of course,” both girls say, in staggered stereo. 

The bathroom locks in the building aren’t particularly strong, nor are they particularly secure, but it’s not like Proto can force the lock with his enhanced strength or demonstrate his lock picking skills without breaking his cover. No, this needs to be something a slightly shady former college student knows how to do, which means it’s going to have to be credit carding. 

Proto unfolds the knife blade on his multitool and slips it in between the door and its frame, rattling the handle to get the edge of the knife securely under the curved lower edge of the latch. Most door locks have deadpins built into them to defeat this kind of forced entry, but in actuality deadpins fail frequently, due to heat and humidity cycles warping the wood, or the initial installation of the lock being shoddy in the first place. This door probably falls under both categories. 

The latch gives ridiculously easily and slides back into its housing, and Proto yanks swiftly on the doorknob as it does. Shizu is hogging the bath, yes. But that’s because she’s lying in cooling, red-tinted bathwater, her forearms slit deeply, wrist to elbow.

“Shit!” Anya shouts, and Proto dashes in ahead of her, leaving his multitool on the counter. He can deal with that later. He grabs both Shizu’s and Midori’s bath towels from the towel rack and lifts Shizu’s right arm out of the bath, wraps it in a towel. 

Midori lets out a little whimper and steps backwards reflexively at what she’s seeing, and he can’t blame her. Most laymen really don’t know what it’s like to find 2 of a person’s average 5 liters of blood spilled all over the place. 

“Anya, get some tape, something I can hold these towels in place with. Rope, pantyhose, anything. Midori, I want you to get your phone and call the police.” Proto reaches out to Shizu’s neck, finds her barely alive, her pulse faint and thready, fluttering rapidly. “Shizu,” he says, calling her name repeatedly, loudly. “Shizu. Wake up.”

Shizu does not wake, and the other two girls leave to do what he’s told them to, which gives him a few seconds of time. He reaches up to the nape of his neck and pulls a hidden cable out of one of the ports implanted there, unreels it, and plugs it into one of the interface ports on the back of Shizu’s neck, begging her silently for forgiveness as he does so. _I’m sorry,_ he thinks, _that this is going to be a further violation of your mind. But I need the proof._

Shizu’s attack barriers are civilian-model, hardly a challenge to him, and he slips gently, carefully into her mind, does as rapid a scan as he can. Something jumps out at him from her memories, scalding him almost with the emotional weight of her shame and horror, and he stops replaying that segment proper, just copies the entire portion into his own memory just as he hears Anya’s footsteps thumping down the hallway. Then he disconnects himself from Shizu, lets the cable reel back into its housing, and works on keeping her head above water, at least for a little while. 

“Will this stuff do?” Anya asks Proto, and he turns his head to see that she’s holding a roll of wardrobe tape. Good. 

“It’ll hold. I’m going to lift her out of the bath and lay her out on the floor. Get a blanket and a pillow from one of the rooms next door, I don’t care whose.” Bloody water drips from Shizu’s skinny frame onto the clothes Proto is wearing, Souji’s clothes, but he does not care. He lays her gently down and shrugs his sport coat off, drapes it over her nudity before he returns to work trying to slow the bleeding. He wraps a towel tightly around each forearm, securing each with loops of wardrobe tape. 

Anya returns with a pillow tucked under one arm and a comforter under the other, and together they drape the coverlet over Shizu as Proto props her feet up and keeps her legs elevated. The pillow is too shallow to prop Shizu's legs up at a proper angle so he holds her bony ankles between his hands himself. “Is she still breathing?” he asks Anya, who leans close to check. 

“Barely,” she says, “Shit, Shizu, why did you do this?”

There’s another scramble of footsteps, multiple people, and it’s Midori, who’s brought the resident house mother to help. Proto directs the house mother to help him keep Shizu’s legs elevated, as he kneels by her head to monitor her pulse and breathing, keeps her chin tilted up and her airway open. 

“Come on,” he murmurs to her, as though she can hear him, “we’re all fighting for you, don’t give up now.” Shizu’s ragged breathing catches in her chest, in a shallow little gasp, and her heart flutters, skips a beat. _No,_ Proto thinks at her, _come on_. 

Shizu’s pulse falters under Proto’s fingers, and then stops, and he leans desperately over her, closing her nose with his fingers, and breathes a breath of life into her lungs, as he begins to perform CPR. Someone bursts into tears behind him, but he’s too busy to care, to do anything else except help this one girl breathe, forcing the blood through her veins with his hands.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proto finds himself in police custody after the events of Chapter 2, unable to explain his own situation to someone who's technically on his side. Fortunately, he planned for that occurrence, and Togusa shows up to help him out of his legal predicament. 
> 
> Content warning: Non-graphic discussion of torture and why it doesn't work.  
> Content warning: Second-hand description from a medical professional about witnessing a case of child abuse during her pediatric rotation.

Proto has gone through the full round of resistance-to-interrogation courses that they teach aviators and special operators at the JGSDF base at Ichikawa, because it’s one of the requirements he has to fulfil to keep his clearance, and therefore his job at Section 9. It isn’t fun, naturally, resisting torture hardly is, not especially when your instructors are allowed to torture you just enough to actually make it a challenge. Synthetic or not, getting an electrified cattle prod shoved in tender parts of your anatomy still hurts, and instructors can tell and get really pissed-off if you cheat and turn your sense of pain off. Besides, Proto still needs to breathe, and can (and has) suffocated in the past, so waterboarding was always an option on the table, as it were. 

It’s a good thing he has been through that training, because he’s been in Niihama Prefectural Police custody for 20 hours now, and he’s getting really bored. He’s also angry, but he’s been upset since they brought him in, if not before. He’s not overly concerned with the turn events have taken, however, because he managed to get an encrypted message out to his support team when the Niihama City PD detectives pulled him in, notifying them on his arrest and telling them to get Togusa in to liaise if he wasn’t heard back from in 24 hours.

Which means he has 4 or more hours left to go before the cavalry arrives, in the best case scenario. Proto is normally someone who can keep himself entertained everywhere, given his constant access to the net. It’s not something he needs to survive, really, since he can turn his cognition to autistic mode to defend himself from a cyberbrain hacker, and there are assignments and ops where he has to cut himself off from network access the whole time. But there is something uniquely frustrating about being locked in a cell built into a Faraday cage for his interrogation. The worst thing, he thinks, about the present state of affairs is that he’s being interrogated by one of the good guys, someone who’s technically on the same side as he is, except of course he can’t tell his own side of the story because it’s classified so tightly that the Prime Minister herself would also need to have need-to-know to also access it.

— 

Proto’s present predicament began shortly after the medics took over ventilating Shizu with a bag valve mask, and whisked her swiftly away to the ambulance waiting outside. They had barely stopped to stabilize her, which is exactly the thing one does with a patient who has decompensated and gone into cardiac arrest. Medical types call it a “scoop-and-run”, where the priority is on getting the patient to a fully-equipped trauma center as soon as possible, delivering only enough care to keep them alive on the way there, because there simply isn’t that much more medics can do to help. 

Proto is familiar with such cases simply because of his training at Section 9, and most of them don’t end well. Successful cardioversion in patients who have sustained cardiac arrest outside the hospital is presently a slim 10%, up from the 8% of previous decades before the invention of cryobags and micromachine corpuscles, and many of the survivors survive with deficits that require prosthetic support. 

That’s largely due to the trauma triad of death — blood loss interferes with oxygen delivery and also causes hypothermia. Both factors can lead to a halt in the clotting cascade, preventing blood from coagulating, which further diminishes oxygen delivery. In the absence of oxygen the body’s metabolism attempts to burn glucose anaerobically, which releases acidic metabolic by-products into the bloodstream, lowering blood pH. That, in turn, can damage organ tissues, and lead to myocardial dysfunction, further lowering oxygen delivery. 

Proto is not a qualified medical professional like Reiko is, but he is a very well-trained public security officer with an eidetic memory, which means that whatever he has to read up on in training refreshers, he retains. Detectives from the Niihama Prefecture Police had shown up to interview the witnesses and take their accounts separately, as is routine procedure, and they had stopped to talk to the four witnesses present: Anya, Midori, Yuriko, the agency house mother, and Proto. Or should he say, Souji, the person he is currently pretending to be. 

Proto knew one of the detectives responding to the case on sight — one Tatsuya Kanemoto, currently at a loose end now that his involvement in the Nakagawa case has ended, courtesy of Section 9, and he’s also fairly sure that one of the girls, Midori, probably, went and told Kanemoto that Souji had jimmied the lock to the bathroom door. In response to that, Kanemoto requested that Souji follow him back to the police HQ for “a talk”, which Proto knew to mean “further questioning”. 

Under Japanese law suspects have two rights: the right to silence, and the right to an attorney if they are charged in a court of law. They can be held three days before the police have to officially begin their investigation. The Prosecutor’s Office can approve ten days’ more detention if the police want more follow-up, and a judge can approve another ten days of detention following that, if they really have to sweat the perp. 

That’s before charges are even brought in the first place. 

Souji wouldn’t have resisted arrest, and Proto knows better than to try. It’d blow his cover, for one. Instead, he sent an encrypted message out to his support team on cybercomm, just in case things got weird — which they have, if only because Kanemoto, damn his due diligence, has probed far enough to uncover the lie in Proto’s current identity. Things started pleasantly enough, with the detectives not even bothering with a good-cop/bad-cop routine. They asked Souji his name and current address, profession, travel history, all straightforward things. They also took his fingerprints, as “routine procedure”, since his multitool had been found blade-out in the bathroom Shizu had slit her wrists in. Proto knows enough that that is not any kind of routine procedure, not when the bloodied razorblades Shizu had used had been found on the floor beside the bathtub, with her gory fingerprints still on them.

Still, that’s fully within expectations for a zealous investigator, especially one who has been recently traumatized by accessing the memories of someone who has had their Ghost raped. No, things officially got weird 4 hours into the interrogation when Kanemoto had a specialist forensic tech look “Souji” over with Class B prosthetic eyes, and then a couple guys from the riot squad stuck a cyberbrain jammer in one of the ports in Proto’s neck and escorted him from the interrogation room he was being held in previously, to his present location. 

Proto is familiar with the model of jammer they had used on him — it’s one Section 9 uses on suspects they want to keep unconscious, or whose movements they want to restrict, depending on the settings on the device. In theory one of those plugged into a cyborg will prevent them from being able to act violently. In practice, those things don’t work on Proto at all. But he had gone along with it, if only not to show his hand, and because it would have gotten him shot at by a pair of riot cops. They would have been using the same AP-tipped explosive rounds in their SMGs as Section 9 would against a highly cyberized suspect, and such ammunition is perfectly capable of doing enough damage to Proto to kill him. Not to mention the amount of explaining he would have had to do to Chief Aramaki if he had decided to fight his way out. 

“I looked you up, you know,” Kanemoto had told Proto, after he was safely ensconced in a reinforced Faraday cage, separated from the interrogator’s desk by a row of alloy bars that Proto doubted he could bend or break, even while exerting his full strength. “Your name checks out, sure, in Niihama City and on the national database. So do your prints. But I decided to go one step further and check out your parents, who supposedly live in Fukuoka, and what do you know? The address you gave us is a real one, but Takeshi and Asami Kondo do not exist. Based on this suspicion, I made a few phone calls to someone I know at Interpol, and asked them to call UC Berkeley for me, and that confirmed something was truly up. They have never had a psychology student named Souji Kondo, and photo records of current enrollment and recent alumni do not show anyone resembling you having ever studied there. On a whim I had one of my colleagues from forensics come and check you out, and what do you know? You’re a very, very subtle job, but that’s a Class A cyborg body you’re carrying around, something someone would issue to an infiltrator meant to pass as human.” 

That’s some very good legwork, Proto had thought at the time, and could have been accomplished in the span of four hours. It’s about an hour to Fukuoka via the Shinkansen, even if tickets are about ¥12,000 each, and trains leave the Niihama City station for Hakata every 20 minutes. Kanemoto was (and is) clearly someone who is approaching the level of skill and dedication it takes to work at Section 9.

“So tell me,” Kanemoto asked him, after Proto had chosen to respond with silence, “who the hell are you?”

“It’s above your pay grade,” Proto said, if only because further silence was only going to enrage Kanemoto further. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you more.” It’s a good thing his cyberbrain is shielded from external probing, so nobody realizes that there isn’t a brain in there. Well, not one that resembles a human brain in shape and size, since his mind lives on an advanced neurochip connected to a biologic processor. 

“Clearly whoever’s backing you has the resources and skill to insert a false identity into national-level databases. And a Class-A body, that’s billions of yen to acquire, on the black market.” Proto let out an internal sigh at that. Of course Kanemoto had gone entirely the wrong direction with his personal theories on the Nakagawa case. “The case I was working on previously had some similarities to what happened to your little friend Shizu, you know. Another model killed himself. He’s still comatose, right now.”

“Mikio Nakagawa, yes, it’s been in the papers, and on the television channels, and all over the Net,” Proto said, just a little testily then, because Kanemoto was truly barking up the wrong tree. Apophenia happens sometimes, especially in investigators who haven’t had enough rest or mandatory psych leave recently. 

“Yes,” Kanemoto said, “it has been, but would you know it, the case documents on our server vanished. As though it had never existed.” 

_Yes, you bullheaded idiot,_ Proto had thought to himself then, _that’s because Section 9 took it over._ But he didn’t voice it, of course, choosing only to lean on his relative lack of affect. It’s frustrating, but he’s ultimately safe here, because there’s nothing that Kanemoto could do to him legally that would actually hurt him. 

Kanemoto had left the interrogation room eventually after threatening to request permission for a forensic psymech to perform a braindive on Proto. Proto knows that judicial permission for such a procedure is very rarely granted, and generally only to the various Public Security Bureau Sections. It had been an empty threat, and therefore he had leaned back in his chair, his wrists still cuffed behind him, and constructed a game of Go in his head. He drew from memories of a recent game against Togusa, where he had lost soundly, and tried to find his way to victory given the conditions of their match, in a series of simulations. 

—

The cavalry arrives at 8:24 AM, a little less than 4 and a half hours after the 24-hour mark, in the form of Togusa, who manages to interrupt Kanemoto’s latest attempt to scare Proto into talking — this time, veiled threats to escalate and remand him into Public Security custody. Which would have been hilarious, frankly, if they hadn’t already wasted so much time and energy on this farce. Togusa’s close relationship with Niihama PD investigators and his Section 9 ID gets him access, so much of it, in fact, that the door to the reinforced interrogation room opens while Kanemoto is mid-question. 

“I thought I said no interruptions,” Kanemoto says, and then he stops short at the sight of Togusa’s badge and ID. 

Togusa steps wordlessly in and waits for the door to shut behind him before he speaks. “Hey,” he says, Proto-ward. “They’re not treating you too badly here, are they?”

“Morning, Togusa. I’d like to get back to work,” Proto says, sighs. “But I probably need to wash Shizu’s blood off my hands first.” Her blood has dried in his clothes, on his skin, flaking and itchy, to form dark brown scrims under his fingernails. 

Kanemoto’s expression is frozen in a sleep-deprived mask that Proto recognizes well. It’s the exact look on the face of a man who has just painfully defecated a rectangular block of masonry substitute. 

“Sorry to keep you waiting, we had to get the Chief’s signature on something,” Togusa says reasonably, slightly apologetically. And then he turns to Kanemoto, all business now as he reaches into his coat to pull out two things. “Firstly, Mr. Kanemoto, we at Public Security Section 9 are dreadfully sorry for this misunderstanding that has taken up so much of your time. This man who you have detained for questioning is actually a field officer in good standing, currently assigned to a sensitive undercover mission. Here is his badge and ID to prove his identity, and here is a memorandum signed by Chief Aramaki stating such. Unfortunately my colleague Mr. Iwasaki could not state his real identity without violating various clearances.”

Togusa holds the memorandum out so Kanemoto can read it, but snatches it away the moment he reaches out to take it. “Uh-uh, I apologize, this document is eyes-only. Our eyes, that is, the three of us. If you’re done reading it, I’ll have to destroy it now.” 

Kanemoto looks at the photo ID above Proto’s badge, and Proto tosses his head to swing Souji’s shag-cut hair out and away from his face to help Kanemoto make the connection. “I appreciate your kind offer,” Proto says then, a little pettily, “to reunite me with my colleagues, but that might blow my cover, so I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

Togusa takes a lighter out of a coat pocket and raises an eyebrow expectantly, sets fire to the memo with a certain air of ceremony, and Kanemoto puts Proto’s badge and ID down, triggers the door unlock for the reinforced cell Proto is sitting in. Proto rises from his uncomfortable chair, rolls his shoulders back and forward to limber back up, and waits for Togusa to pluck the ineffective cyberbrain jammer from the back of his neck. He then dislocates his metacarpals on command, sliding the now-useless handcuffs over his hands with a rattle and a clink, and picks his own ID off the desk with his index and middle fingers.

“Do you really have to show off like that?” Togusa asks him with mock disapproval. “It makes my eyes water when you dislocate your own joints like a contortionist.” 

Proto pops one thumb back into place automatically, uses his fingers to realign the other one. “Class A body prosthetic, just like he said,” he says with a tired shrug. “Where’s my stuff?”

“We’ll get it back on the way out,” Togusa says. He’s already leaving the interrogation room with the brisk air of a man who has already wasted enough of his time. 

Proto pauses though, standing in the doorway with a glance to Kanemoto. “Excellent work, Detective, on following up on my cover identity,” he says with full sincerity, without any trace of sarcasm. “And thank you for your hospitality.” He then turns on his heel and leaves. 

— 

“You were having entirely too much fun with that,” Proto says silently to Togusa over an encrypted cybercomm channel as they step out into the unshielded hallway. Proto closes his eyes briefly as they walk, savoring his renewed connection to the Net. He doesn’t need it to survive, per se, but it’s pretty high up there in the 2030s version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

“So were you,” Togusa says. They’re walking at a slow pace, because Proto is tired and hungry and also thirsty. The annoying alarm in his head that tells him he needs to sleep has been going off for 4 hours now. Togusa is a considerate man, and has constrained his own stride so Proto doesn’t have to push himself. The police ought to have fed him and let him sleep at least once during his stay here, according to regulations, but all that went out the window once they realized he had a Class A body.

Proto shrugs mentally, his slight irritation clear. “You weren’t sitting there 28 hours with him making up crazier and crazier conspiracies about how he got taken off the Nakagawa case in your face.”

“Was that the angle he was taking? What on earth did he take you for?” Togusa’s thoughts sound genuinely surprised here. 

“Foreign wetworker,” Proto says with a sad little mental huff. “I think he’s focusing too much on the ‘nephew of the Minister of Education’ angle. That and sleep deprivation, caffeine toxicity, and secondary trauma. It’s enough to turn anyone paranoid. That man needs a mandatory psych review, and he needs to take some time off, or he’s going to get himself killed.” 

“Shit. I’ll mention that on official channels,” Togusa says. They wait together at a processing station while one of the officers retrieves his belongings from a locker. They’re laid neatly out before him in a white plastic tray: Souji’s phone and keys and belt, his wallet and its contents, and Proto’s multitool and its leather sheath. 

Proto checks each item out against the inventory sheet and signs with Souji’s signature, opts to carry everything in the transparent plastic bag they give him because Souji’s current pair of jeans are tight enough that sticking his keys in a pocket feels like he’s stabbing himself in the thigh with a butterknife. He wonders where Souji’s sport coat is, right now, with the other stuff in Souji’s pockets. Probably still on the bathroom floor where Shizu died, where the medics left it. “I do feel sorry for Kanemoto even though I’m irritated with him. I’ve got Shizu’s memories of an assault in my head, too, and I can’t bear to watch them. I managed to copy them over before she went into cardiac arrest.”

“About that,” Togusa says, and he sounds truly sorry now. 

“She didn’t make it, did she?” It’s not unexpected, but it still stings. 

“No,” Togusa says, sadly. Proto remembers how fragile Shizu’s body felt under his hands as he performed chest compressions, remembers the distinctive and unnerving sensation of her ribs creaking under his raw strength. He remembers breathing life into her lungs again and again, his mouth over hers in a last unwanted kiss. 

“I had guessed so,” Proto says after a few seconds of silence, as they trudge slowly out of the Niihama PD headquarters. “Can you arrange for our forensics guys to do a tox screen?”

“Already done. Positive for somnacin. What are you going to do now?” Togusa asks, very gently. 

“I don’t know.” Proto says. The alarm blares in his head, telling him he needs to rest, and he silences it, yet again. “I need to get back on the case, but I’m not in any shape to do it right now.” 

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” Somehow Proto hasn’t noticed that they’ve managed to walk across the parking lot to where Togusa has parked, which means he’s really not fit to be on duty right now. Togusa has brought — it’s not his usual work vehicle. No, Togusa has driven here in Proto’s work car, a beautiful 2010 Mazda RX-8. Proto has missed it so very badly while undercover as Souji. 

“I don’t know,” he says. He wants to reach out and pat the RX-8, but he doesn’t want to do it with Shizu’s blood still under his fingernails. It seems disrespectful somehow, both of Shizu, and the car which has served him very well thus far. “Souji would take a cab, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah, but Souji would probably go visit his girlfriend Reiko after a rough time like this.” Make use of your support team, you idiot, that’s the essence of what Togusa is saying, he’s just rather more polite about it. 

“Point,” Proto concedes. He climbs into the passenger seat of the RX-8 and fastens his seatbelt, waits for Togusa to shut the driver’s side door before he takes their conversation off encrypted cybercomm, and speaks aloud. “Who are you supposed to be, then?”

“Your dad’s lawyer, giving you a lift to your girlfriend’s, after you turn down the offer of a Shinkansen ticket to Fukuoka with promises to call your mom after you’ve caught some sleep. Mom and Dad were notified by one of your friends who heard you’d been arrested. Easy.”

“Good idea,” Proto says. He leans back against the custom suede seat, inherited from a former owner, and closes his eyes with a sense of utter weariness. “Take the drive to the safehouse slowly, if it’s okay. I’d like to take a little nap on the way there.” 

“No problem.” Togusa turns the key in the ignition after that, and the RX-8’s familiar rumble cossets Proto, thrums from the frame of the car into his synthetic flesh and bones. It’s reassuring, comforting, like a mother’s heartbeat, a mechanical mother for an AI child. Proto puts himself on hibernate mode then, and lets himself truly sleep, at least for a little while. 

—

As Proto’s support team while he remains undercover, Saito, Reiko and Maven have set up housekeeping in an upscale apartment complex near Niihama City downtown, a plausible place for three upwardly-mobile young people to live in if they pooled money for the rent. That’s so they can remain close enough to pull an emergency extraction if they have to, and also so Proto doesn’t have to go too far if he needs maintenance for his body or a short break. Togusa drops Proto off at street level after collecting his badge and ID from him, so that he won’t, as Souji, be found with anything on him that could compromise his cover. 

“Hey,” Proto thinks to Saito, who’s no doubt keeping an eye on anyone approaching the building through IR camera access, “it’s me, coming up. Togusa just dropped me off.” He’s using an encrypted cybercomm channel, just so they can’t be overheard. 

“Togusa to the rescue, eh?” Saito asks. “Come on up. There’s food, and Maven’s running a hot bath.” 

“I don’t know how to thank you right now,” Proto sighs speechlessly. He could really do with a little time in a bathtub right now, just to decompress and order his thoughts into a coherent arrangement. “Tell Reiko to get the memory recording and transfer equipment set up, I’ve got some new data.” 

He rides the elevator upstairs and finds his way to the apartment everyone else is in, and someone opens the door before he can knock. It’s Saito, who steps aside to let him in, looks him over, noticing the blood under his fingernails. “Go on and have a shower, take your bath,” Saito says aloud, nodding to the shared bathroom. “I’ll go grab your toiletries and a change of clothes.”

“Good,” Proto says, glad to be himself again, for this short time. “Thank you.” He kneels to untie Souji’s shoelaces, then stands and toes Souji’s sneakers off, and pads softly across the polished hardwood floor. He squirms out of his clothes in the bathroom, leaving the door unlocked so that Saito can hand his clothes and toiletries over to him, and the bath is full of warm water, as promised. The jeans can probably be washed and bleached, but his shirt and misplaced sport coat are probably beyond salvaging. 

The hot shower feels immensely good on Proto’s skin, stinging almost. The water temperature is a perfect 40.5 degrees Celscius, and he sighs in weary gratitude as he lets Souji go for this brief time. There’s a brief knock on the bathroom door, and then it opens as Saito steps in and puts a towel, some folded clothing, and a small net-bag of toiletries on the closed commode lid. It’s not as though most of the guys haven’t glimpsed each other naked or nearly so in the sexless environment of the locker room, so it’s not really anything Proto would have a hangup about even without his complete lack of body-shame. 

Saito, long accustomed to the sight of his male coworkers naked around him, barely bats an eyelash as he grabs Proto’s worn clothes off the floor, and sticks them in a laundry bag. “Police raked you over the coals, huh?”

“Ha,” Proto says, spits out a little water before he lowers his face out of the stream of water, so he can talk without gargling as well. “No, they stuck to asking me questions once they had a specialist tech come in and certify that my body is synthetic, because after that they realized I could probably have murdered my way through the HQ with my hands still cuffed behind my back.” 

“Paranoid much?” Saito laughs. 

“Just a little bit.” Proto cuts the water flow off and opens the shower door briefly to grab his toiletries. He hangs the bag from the valve knob on the faucet and fishes out a travel-size bottle of body wash. It’s what Souji would use, not his own preferred brand, because how you smell is also very important in how people perceive you, and he’ll have to get back under Souji’s skin sooner or later. But it feels so good to scrub the blood off his hands and chest, his thighs and knees, to get the omnipresent stink of cigarette smoke and tar off his skin. 

“Reiko’s getting the equipment set up in the master bedroom, but I think you should eat and grab a nap before we get back to work stuff,” Saito says, as Proto gets a travel-size bottle of shampoo out of his toiletry bag and begins sudsing his wet hair up, working it deep into his scalp and roots. 

“Sounds good,” Proto says, as he reaches out with a soapy hand to turn the shower on again. “What are we eating?” 

“Feijoada, it’s leftovers from last night, if that’s okay. It was Maven’s turn to cook.” Saito says that as though leftover feijoada would be any less of a feast than it originally is. The promise of pork and beef cured, salted, and fresh, all cooked into a savory stew with black beans, makes Proto incredibly conscious of the fact that he’s eaten mostly calorie restricted meals based around salads and penurious amounts of brown rice for the past month.

“I’m tempted to step out of the shower naked just to get some right now,” he says over the sound of the water hissing in his ears, hoping now that there are actually enough leftovers left to satisfy his hunger at this point.

“Don’t do that, you’ll get water everywhere,” Saito says with a brief laugh. “Okay. I’ll leave you now. Come out when you’re ready, okay?”

“Thanks.” 

— 

Proto feels better after a long soak in the bathtub, following his shower. It’s a proper ofuro tub, designed for the bather to sit, and hot water laps languidly against his collarbones as he lets himself relax truly. That’s another thing that was wrong with the housing Souji is living in right now — the tubs are too shallow and too long. It’s not as though Proto has anything against Western-style bathtubs, but the ones supplied for the bathrooms where Souji lives are cheap fiberglass tubs, somewhere around 35cm deep. That’s hardly enough for a person his height to be satisfactorily immersed while bathing. 

And then Proto remembers Shizu lying motionless in one of those shallow tubs, and he suddenly does not want to be sitting in a blood-warm bath any more. He drains the water and stands, grabbing for the fresh towel that Saito has left over his change of clothes. Proto has been around the dead and dying before. Has in fact been the cause of more than one person’s death in his career to date. But he has never had someone die under his hands like Shizu had. 

Proto feels little to no guilt at killing an opponent in defense of others, because it would be counterproductive given the purposes he was built for. But part of his internal sense of ethics revolves around not letting innocents be harmed, if he can help it. He knows intellectually he cannot save everyone, because he is only one person, albeit a very capable one. But he feels a deep and profound loss at Shizu’s death, because her suffering had been completely unnecessary, if not for the whims of some deeply selfish individuals. It’s when you start treating people like things, he thinks, that’s when you get accustomed to disregarding their boundaries, their bodies, their souls. 

Some would consider it ironic that Proto, who could be very much described as a thing, not legally a person under some criteria, is more moral than organic humans. He himself does not consider it ironic, if only because people will be people, no matter how they come into being. He’s sure a century or two from now there will be AIs who are as much assholes as humans themselves. It is what it is, which is why there exists a need for public security work. 

Proto finishes towelling off and pulls his clothes on, walks barefoot out of the steamy bathroom, his hair still damp and rumpled down his shoulders. Water wicks from his damp hair into the fabric of his long-sleeved t-shirt, but he doesn’t care about the wet spot between his shoulder blades, because something smells incredibly good in here. It’s as though someone has grabbed hold of his sense of smell and is caressing it gently with soft, light fingers, and he follows the fragrance to the apartment’s small kitchen. Maven is there standing over a large heavy-bottomed pot, stirring its contents as it warms back up on the stove.

There are many Japanese Brazillian citizens in Niihama City, descendants of Japanese immigrants to Brazil in the early 20th century, who returned to Japan in the boom times after the Japanese Miracle. They occupy an uneasy place in contemporary Niihama City, being ethnically but not culturally Japanese, and many do not speak fluent Japanese. It’s an odd reverse of the situations Proto finds himself in, being culturally Japanese, even if he does not look the part. Maven herself is of mixed Brazillian/Japanese ancestry, although her return to Japan was rather more recent, based largely on corporate contract security work and police work in Fukuoka until Chief Aramaki recruited her to Section 9. 

“I’m so glad you were on dinner duty last night, Maven,” Proto says, and Maven snorts in response. Neither Saito nor Reiko are anything you’d define as good cooks, according to the Section 9 gossip mill. 

“You think you have it bad? I’m the one who has to eat their cooking while we live together,” Maven shakes her head once. “At least Saito can make curry from packaged roux, but…” She lets her voice trail off, as though unwilling to state the outcome of Reiko’s cooking attempts. 

“You can’t blame Reiko,” Proto says thoughtfully, as Maven begins to dish out a respectable helping of purple-black stew on top of rice reheated in the microwave. “Fast-tracking a dual M.D/Ph.D engineering program didn’t give her much time to learn to cook, because I’m not sure where she found the time to sleep or eat while she did that.”

“She’s had plenty of time to learn since then,” Maven sighs. She covers the bowl with toppings: stir-fried greens of some sort, crumbly cassava flour, a few orange segments, and places it on the table before Proto, hands him a spoon. “It’s a survival skill, like any other. You know how to cook.” 

Left unspoken of course, is Maven’s opinion that if Proto (a two-year-old AI) can learn to cook, then Reiko has no real excuse for being an unalloyed disaster in the kitchen, which is an oddly old-fashioned notion, given Reiko’s high cyberization percentage. It’s not as though she would have a reason to cook or eat normal food if she didn’t want to. But that’s not an argument Proto ever wants to take sides in, for reasons of professionalism and getting along with co-workers who may have to cover his back in a firefight, and so he remains diplomatically silent. “Thank you,” Proto says instead, and he holds his hands together politely in his lap. “I gratefully partake.” 

—

The good solid bulk of Maven’s cooking leaves Proto feeling more human again, or perhaps that’s the wrong phrase to use, but he staggers off to the master bedroom feeling fed and fueled. Last month’s calorie-restricted meals, and the effort of sustaining Souji’s persona and behavior, have left Proto feeling chronically stretched thin. That state of affairs came to a head while Kanemoto was interrogating him. Hungry, weary, and cut off from methods of soothing himself, Proto snapped at least one or twice, which was unfortunate, because he really shouldn’t have said anything to Kanemoto at all, given the secrecy of his current assignment and the classified nature of his existence in the first place. 

Minor slips like that in the face of a professional interrogator reveal fault-lines that they can exploit to increase physical or psychological stress, if they so wish. It’s policy that Section 9 does not use torture or anything like it, not even disguised with twee little euphemisms such as “enhanced interrogation”. That is because the crises Section 9 deals with are often the most pressing ones, and torture is both unprofessional and ineffective. A person under torture will tell you anything to make it stop — even obvious falsehoods, and a false positive is as dangerous, perhaps even more so than a false negative. 

A subject withholding information can be asked again after establishing rapport. An innocent confessing falsely to charges to make torture stop can lead to the entire investigation being halted, which frees the real suspect to act again, and counterterror professionals can’t afford to have the latter happen. Oh, there are always people who will contrive ridiculous and impossible scenarios to justify torture, as though it will be okay for hard men to make hard decisions as long as enough notional innocents are being endangered. Proto does not like working with people who think like that, in general, because they also tend to think they are rather more competent than they actually are. 

What is the point, he has wondered, of engaging in public security work, if you become as much of a threat to an innocent populace as the people you’re arresting are? 

Reiko is waiting for Proto in the master bedroom — this is the room she sleeps in, when she needs to. Fortunately, it is morning still, and she looks as though she’s going to remain awake for a while yet. Also, the bed is also large enough for two, and she sleeps on the left exclusively, which means he’s free to lie down on the right if he needs a rest. It’s something they hashed out between them before Proto went undercover, in case Souji needs to spend the night with his fictitious girlfriend. 

“Would you mind if I passed out in your bed for an hour or two?” Proto asks her, just to be polite, and she turns from the equipment she’s set up to glance at him. 

“It’s all yours. Your next maintenance is two days away. Want I just give you a fresh infusion now and do a diagnostic pass?” she asks. 

“Might as well, since I’m here.” 

“I’ve got the memory transfer array set up, too, portable external memory bank, everything.” 

“Good,” Proto pushes the covers aside and lies down fully clothed on the right side of the bed, curls up on his left side to give her better access to the port implanted in the crook of his left arm, and to the ports in the nape of his neck. 

Reiko puts on a pair of nitrile examination gloves, pulling them on with an experienced snap, and kneels down on the bed to roll Proto’s left sleeve up. She then cleans his skin with alcohol and iodine, and pulls a pack of synthetic blood from a mini-fridge below the room desk. Proto closes his eyes and lets his body rest as she hooks him up both to the IV line and her portable diagnostic terminal, and he listens to the sound of her fingers tapping against the keyboard while she works. It’s something he’s always found comforting and familiar, the sound of someone else typing around him. He supposes it’s because of all the time he’s spent speaking through diagnostic terminals, thinking his thoughts into firefly blips that are answered via text entered that way.

“Mm,” she says after a few minutes have passed. “All systems nominal, looks like. You just need rest and a top-up.” 

“Yes,” he says. It’s good to rest as himself, to take some time to breathe without Souji’s personality and behavior masking his. He feels Reiko’s weight shifting as she climbs off the bed, and then twitches in vague surprise when he finds her tucking the covers over him. 

“Sorry,” Reiko says, looking a little contrite when he opens an eye to glance up at her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” It isn’t as though he’s particularly cold, but this is something he could have done, once she was no longer pinning the blankets down with her body weight. It’s appreciated, though, and he closes his eyes again. It’s nice, kind of, to be taken care of in a way that isn’t strictly medical or technical, even if it’s something he doesn’t have very much experience with. 

“You’re just not the kind of person I expect to find tucking other people in. And it’s not like our relationship works that way, anyway,” Proto says, because he knows the truth won’t offend her. He helped mentor her months ago, on her secondment to Section 9, but in truth there wasn’t that much he had needed to do — she’d already had enough training as a JASDF pathfinder that she would have adjusted quite easily with or without his influence. And she’s always been a brilliant psymech and cyberbrain hacker. There was a little friction in their interactions at first, but that evened out with time, and now he likes to forward terrible research papers to her, complete with bitchy little comments in the margins, so she can insult their terrible research too.

Reiko laughs a little and pulls the interface plug from the nape of Proto’s neck, “I’ve spent a little time doing that, actually, when I did my residency, during pediatric rotation. So many little children needing cyberbrain procedures because of catastrophic accidents or congenital malformations. The saddest ones were the kids who weren’t sad or frightened because they’d spent enough time in hospitals to find it a normal state of affairs.”

“Because a more typical child would be distressed, yes,” Proto muses, and Reiko sits down again on the other side of the bed, the mattress shifting as she does. There’s another shift as she puts whatever she was carrying down. 

“That’s when I realized I didn’t have the personality for clinical work,” Reiko says with a humorless little chuckle, an eerie sound. “I punched a patient’s mother out when I realized she was making her daughter sick. Poisoning, cybernetic sabotage. Munchausen by proxy. Trauma rotation was easier by comparison, you just have to scramble and keep people from dying, and … you don’t have as much time to think about who or what they are. You just have the one job to do.” 

Proto knows what Munchausen by proxy is: it’s a mental disorder that law enforcement officers are trained to look out for, where a caregiver worsens the illness of the person being cared for out of a deep need for the kind of attention given to the family of a seriously ill person. A close encounter with someone like that would have soured anyone’s motivation to become a practicing clinician. “That’s when you decided the armed forces were for you?” he asks.

“Well, the armed forces decided I was a good candidate and made me an offer, and I decided, why not?” Reiko plugs another interface plug into Proto’s neck, her touch light and careful and deft, and his operating systems recognize the memory transfer array she’s plugged him into. Accessing, cross-checking and manipulating his memories is a rather more straightforward process than it would be on a human with a cyberbrain, given the digital nature of his memory encoding.

Shizu’s memories are analog, however, and Proto can only read and understand them through a complex adaptive process similar to wrapping software for one operating system in a compatibility layer so it can be run in another operating system. That means that they’ll have to go through hardware designed to work with human cyberbrains to transfer the recording with highest fidelity. This is going to be important if they’re going to go over Shizu’s memories and search for clues that could identify the people who abused her covertly. 

“I can see it,” Reiko says after a few moments of rapid scanning — she’s hooked up to the memory transfer array as well. “It’s in partition K-14. That right?” 

“Yes,” Proto says. “Copy it to external memory, please, Reiko, and don’t access it, please.” He can feel Reiko’s Ghost right up against his mind, and it’s almost as though he’s got his face buried in the nape of her neck, if he were to articulate how intimate this feels to him. There’s the milky smell of her synthetic skin, like his, like the other cyborgs he’s been connected to before, but also a difference from the others. 

Formulaic hints of soap and shampoo mingle with the floral citrusy notes of the perfume she wears day to day, the slightly musty smell of a jacket left hanging in a closet until the weather started to turn, and the smells of worn leather and engine oil. It’s not so much a physical scent as much as a sense-memory, and Proto thinks that it’s subconscious on her part, that the way her body smells is something she’s grown so used to that she doesn’t think about it. It’s a unique identifier, a part of her proprioception that she carries with her that humans don’t generally notice, that he does, because he isn’t human. 

“That bad, huh?” Reiko’s mind is cool and detached against his like a touch of metal, a probe or other medical implement in surgical steel, but there’s also her underlying curiosity balanced against it in an uneasy potentiality. He can feel her touching the recorded memory but not looking into it, similar to how someone would handle a sealed box, its contents unknown. 

“Yes,” Proto says. “Shizu, the original owner of the memory, killed herself. I managed to copy it over just before she went into cardiac arrest.” Even now he can remember Shizu’s second hand shame, and flinches back from it. It’s not an emotion he’s accustomed to, in general, and it’s going to take some getting used to on his part.

“I’m sorry,” Reiko says. She can see his diagnostics from her intimate contact with his mind, and has likely noticed the uptick in his pulse rate, the unease registering on his emotional variation without a physical cause. “Yeah. Her emotions would be pretty intense, in that case. What do you want me to do after I’ve copied it?”

“I can’t keep working with Shizu’s feelings burning a hole in the back of my head,” Proto says, reaching for the only analogy that works. But it’s not a burning feeling per se, and he lacks the right words to describe it. “Delete it, please.”

“That’s something that’s going to require a witness, you know the procedure.” Reiko is right. It is possible for a psymech to alter a person’s memories, but in general it’s not done frequently, because of the way human memory access works. Blocking a single memory off could have destabilizing effects on a person’s Ghost. 

It’s rather different for AIs, of course. Proto knows that the late Tachikomas didn’t feel anything when they had inappropriate memories wiped, and neither will he. But he gets to be a person so he can be an employee of Section 9, which means the usual protocols follow. “Yes. Maven or Saito will do, whoever’s free.” 

Reiko doesn’t reply verbally, but she sends a message out on cybercomm, and there’s a quick tap at the bedroom door afterwards. It’s Saito, Proto can tell, from the vibrations of his feet on the floor. Both Reiko and Maven weigh more than he does, due to their mil-spec prosthetic bodies. “Hey. You two look almost domestic, you know,” Saito says with a little teasing, “gonna put a ring on it?”

“I’ll have you know,” Reiko says primly, “that this is a proper doctor-patient relationship, so ethically I can’t sleep with Proto even if either of us were interested and also not colleagues. Now shut up, sit down, and just witness this procedure, if you don’t mind.” 

“Okay,” Saito says with a little laugh, as he perches himself on the edge of Proto’s side of the bed. “Ready when you are.”

“Copying, 14%, 37%... done. File successfully saved,” Reiko murmurs, her voice oddly monotone as she concentrates on the work she’s doing. “Now deleting memory.”

Proto shudders briefly as Shizu’s memory flashes hot and bright in his mind like a lightning strike, and then it is gone, his head empty of her rage and shame and sorrow. Reiko has not deleted any memories he has made around Shizu’s memory, so he is aware that he had copied it over, and of what it contained, but it is no longer there to destabilize his own sense of equilibrium. It is now detached from him, and his sense of self. “Thank you,” Proto murmurs wearily. 

“Okay,” Reiko says, “that’s all I have to be here for, so I’m going to leave now and let you rest.”

Proto does not bother replying. He can feel her getting up from the bed, from the movement of the mattress beneath him, and Saito is standing up, too. He follows their footsteps outward with his acute hearing, and burrows deeper under the covers as the door shuts behind them. Reiko has locked the door behind her too, from the way the latch clicked in the jamb. How thoughtful. 

Proto’s thoughts turn to Takumi again while he’s lying still in bed, alone and absolutely in private. It’s been hard not thinking of him, or of Detective Aizawa, or Shiori, or the new neighbors he has met and nodded to several times before since his move to a new apartment building. It’s been hard not being himself for almost a month. 

Proto misses his friends and acquaintances, the tiny little human connections he’s made to others in the time he’s been Hajime Iwasaki, field officer at Section 9. And he misses his coworkers as well, but they don’t feel as remote as his friends do, not when he has Saito, Reiko, and Maven all supporting him in every way they can, as they are doing now. 

He knows Takumi is in the tailor’s shop right now. Talking to customers, probably, taking their orders down. Assisting his father with fittings, cutting precisely-laid out pattern pieces out of fabric meterage, assembling and pad stitching canvases. Thinking of him brings up a photo he had sent to Proto several months ago, when he had been working on one of Proto’s linen suits. It was the picture of a piece of hymo cut out for the left chest canvas, with the kanji for mamoru, “protection” written on it in blue pencil, in Takumi’s neat hand. 

It’s a clever play on superstition; every Japanese shrine has omamori for sale, little silk brocade bags holding tiny talisman scrolls that are prayed over by monks and priests for protection, love, health, and good luck. Some more obscure shrines may specialize in blessings against bear attacks or protection against cyber-prosthesis malfunction. But they’re all things you’re meant to carry with you as a personal talisman. The canvas for a suit is encased between the outer fabric and its lining. It’s never meant to be seen, just as the ofuda in an omamori is never meant to be looked at or read, lest it lose its efficacy. So thus does Takumi’s wish, sitting between Proto’s heart and the intentions of those who would wish to harm him.

Takumi had included a caption too, one that had read _so they won’t have to cut this one off you in the ER, too._

The photograph fails to bring a smile to Proto’s face this time, though, only more of that hollow disappointment he has felt in himself since he left Takumi’s apartment the morning after their last dinner date. Proto knows where this fear and apprehension are coming from. He fears that he has damaged their friendship irrevocably by stepping over a boundary they had mutually agreed to keep without overtly stating so. 

Searching within himself, Proto finds that he does not regret the sex they had, in itself. It was good, incredibly so, to be this close to someone else, to study the color of their eyes from mere centimeters away. And Takumi had been desperate, yearning, and responsive in Proto’s arms, his breath hitching in eager gasps between kisses. Proto had found a curious freedom in his uneasy blend of knowledge and naivete, an eager willingness to please and be pleasured in turn. Nothing about what they did had been bad, or wrong, not when they had found so much joy in each other. 

It’s the uncertainty that Proto regrets now, that they might no longer be friends after having crossed this line, and he doesn’t quite know if that’s a state of affairs he can quite mend. This is the first time he has struggled with self-reproach to this extent — there are always things you can and cannot do, and he has always been fairly pragmatic about his own limits. But this is the first time his own need for comfort has overridden his sense of judgment, and also the first time a mistake he has made has led to a direct personal cost. 

Proto has gone about things all wrong, he’s sure of it now, and acted selfishly, asked too much of a friend who has become dear to him in many ways that his colleagues aren’t. Oh, he would die for the other field officers at Section 9, and he knows they would die for him too. But their friendship is always heavily compartmentalized, respectful of rank and fraternization regulations, and that’s something completely different from the lively, free-associative conversations he would have with Takumi weekly. You don’t talk to a colleague the way you talk to a friend. 

Thinking of his own friends makes him think of Souji’s friends, and he dials a number mentally, takes care to spoof the phone number to this apartment. The phone rings a few times, before going to message. 

“Hey, Anya, you’re probably working out or something.” Proto says, using Souji’s speech patterns. “The cops let me out a couple hours ago. It was a misunderstanding about my multitool, I think. I’m currently crashing at my girlfriend’s place now. I’ll be back once I’ve caught some sleep. Just thought you’d want to know.” 

Proto settles back down and considers what Souji’s arrest might mean for Souji’s career, and therefore, his cover. Being taken in for questioning is a bigger deal in Japan than it might be in other countries — prosecutors are generally picky about the cases they choose to prosecute, which means a high conviction rate for cases that go to prosecution. That has led to public opinion assuming guilt on arrest, even if charges are not brought in the first place. 

That might lead the agency to shitcan Souji, but he hasn’t received any new mail from them, nor have they called him on his phone, which means he still technically has his job, and therefore a place to stay. Proto is not a petty person, generally speaking, but he feels like he might want to key Tatsuya Kanemoto’s car if it turns out that Kanemoto’s paranoia has cost him his cover and the means by which he can investigate further. 

There are steps Proto can take, however. He’s halfway through drafting a request to Togusa to call the agency in detective mode to hose the deck down preemptively, when Souji’s phone rings. It’s Anya. Proto checks the caller ID mentally, patches the call to his cybercomm, and picks up without even getting out of bed. 

“Oh God, I’m so glad you’re okay,” she says, the moment he picks up. “I don’t know if they told you. Shizu didn’t make it.”

“No,” Proto says, because Souji wouldn’t have known that. “Fuck. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough.” He’s not sure if he’s really being in character right now, or if this is how he feels himself, as a public security officer. Probably both. It’s never good when an innocent dies. 

“No,” Anya says. She sounds as though she’s on the brink of tears. “Don’t blame yourself. You did what you could, right?”

“Yeah.” Souji sounds unconvinced, and that’s mostly because Proto feels unconvinced, as well. He knows the science and the statistics, but knowing is not the same thing as feeling, as he has come to understand in the two years of his existence. 

“So, a girlfriend, huh,” Anya says, commenting on the message he left for her earlier. “That explains why you weren’t taking advantage of the tea parties to get laid.” 

“Yeah,” Proto says, “her name’s Reiko. You’re not jealous, are you?” That is something Souji would say, because Souji is not as perceptive as Proto is, and wouldn’t have noticed that Anya only seems to leave parties with other girls. 

That provokes a few giggles over the phone line. “You only wish I were into men. You’ll be coming back, though?”

“Yeah, I will, if they’ll still let me in the building. She was just the first person I thought of to call for a pickup, you know?” 

“Yeah. Midori’s here with me. She’d like to talk.”

“Sure, put her on.”

There’s the slight rattle of the phone changing hands, the sound of dangling charms striking the case, before someone else speaks. “Hey,” Midori says. She sounds terrible. “I’m so sorry I got you arrested, Souji. I’m so sorry!”

“Wait,” Proto says, “back up a bit, why do you think you got me arrested?” Proto has suspicions in that direction, but Souji wouldn't. 

“Because the cops looked really interested when I mentioned you were able to break the bathroom door lock,” Midori confesses.

Suspicions confirmed. Proto can’t really blame Midori for letting that slip, though. She’s only sixteen, and is working in Niihama City without her parents because they’re horrible human beings who don’t really care about their daughter, except for how much of her salary they have access to. The agency staff acting in loco parentis have done more to make sure Midori stays educated and protected than her own relations have. It’s fortunate that most of the money she makes remains in a trust that she can’t access until she’s 18. 

“Well, they didn’t charge me with anything,” Proto says, falling into Souji’s big-brother register, “so I’m okay. We’ll talk more when I get back later, okay?” 

“Shizu’s parents came from Nagoya today to identify her body and get her stuff,” Midori says. “We’ve been helping them pack all morning. I told them how you tried to help her, and they said they’d love to see you, if it was okay.”

“I can do that, yeah,” Proto says, without speech. “What time do you need me there? I haven’t slept at all in the past day, so I’ve really gotta take some time out.”

Midori murmurs to someone else, exchanges a few words, before she speaks to Proto again. “Well, they’re not leaving until tomorrow afternoon. I could ask if they want to meet you in the evening, tonight.” 

“Evening works,” Proto says. He was planning to return in the evening, anyway. “Mail me the time and place and I’ll be there.”

“Okay.” 

There’s the incidental little sounds of another handover, and Anya’s voice comes over the phone next. “I’ll let you rest up, Souji, but … I want you to know, we appreciate this.”

Proto blinks, vaguely confused. “Who’s ‘we’?” he asks.

“Midori and I. All the girls here, actually, and most of the guys. So in the hypothetical that the agency thinks you getting hauled in for questioning is gonna make them look bad and they try to fire you, let’s just say that most of us will probably stage a walkout, too. You did good, okay?” A walkout. That will complicate the agency’s plans, even if desperate young models are a dime a dozen on the streets of Niihama City, because it still takes a significant investment in money, time, and energy to train and deploy them correctly. He still thinks he should have Togusa make that phone call, though. Just to cover himself. 

“Thank you,” Proto says insincerely, because he doesn’t feel as though he did anything correctly, right now. “I just wish I could have done more.” 

“Me too.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While undercover Proto makes a miscalculation that places him in greater danger than he has ever been before, but that gamble allows him to delve to the bottom of the conspiracy he's investigating. 
> 
> Content warning: Non-specific POV descriptions of sexual assault  
> Content warning: Emotional trauma

Recorded memories are legally admissible evidence in the courts of many nations, Japan among them, but they come with many caveats — for one, human memory is malleable and mutable, and old memories can be unreliable even if they seem authentic. Prejudice, trauma, and confusion can leave a person sure of something happening one way when surveillance records show events playing out slightly differently. It’s really easy for an investigator to use leading questions to convince a witness that they were actually harmed or abused by someone else when they actually weren’t, which is one of the reasons interrogations and interviews are routinely recorded in the present Japanese legal system. Recording wasn’t instituted just for the investigator’s convenience in transcription afterwards, but also as a way of protecting witnesses and suspects alike from sloppy interrogation technique. 

Moreover, the person whose memories are being compared or recorded has to give informed consent and that consent has to be witnessed by at least one other person. Memories recorded without consent are inadmissible for two reasons. In the case of a suspect, it’s a violation of the right to remain silent in the face of questioning, and in the case of a witness, it’s a violation of their right to privacy. Fortunately or unfortunately for all involved, the investigation that Proto is working on will never go to trial, because of the sensitive nature of what’s being investigated, which is why he has not been and will likely never be censured for his search and download of Shizu Kobayashi’s memories prior to her death by suicide.

Having access to Mikio Nakagawa and Shizu Kobayashi’s memories doesn’t present Section 9 immediately with a smoking gun either, because that’s not how memories work. Firstly, the people who are doing this are reasonably competent, choosing masked, anonymous avatars for the simulations their victims have been trapped in. Secondly, it’s hard to pinpoint date and time from human memory. Proto’s own memories are all conveniently time-stamped, it’s something he can hardly help when his cognition revolves around the repeated cycles of his thoughts. But that’s not the case with either set of memories. They are chunks of isolated memory divorced from the context of date and time from which they are associated. 

Nevertheless, Section 9 has done what they can to follow up, comparing known acquaintances of the four known victims so far and isolating people they all knew in common. This is not as helpful as it may seem at first blush — the fashion industry is fairly incestuous no matter where you go, which meant on a practical level they had an unfeasible number of common acquaintances to investigate further. Quite fortunately, however, one of the victims traveled extensively, frequently, dividing his time between Japan and Taiwan. Ishikawa has managed to narrow down the field of suspects significantly by cross-referencing the victims’ common acquaintances’ schedules with periods of time where Dexter Wang was known to be in Niihama City. 

That’s winnowed the suspect pool down to about a dozen people, which makes it easier for Section 9 to focus their efforts. Most of them are rich — very rich, in a few cases — and associated with the Niihama City fashion scene less as photographers, designers, and stylists, as much as hangers-on. They are businessmen, happily married on the surface, whose more nocturnal activities are ignored by their socially acceptable trophy wives so as not to raise a stink. Politicians. Agency owners. They are men with capital and connections and no small amount of power, which means Section 9 will have to tread carefully when investigating, and also why Proto’s undercover identity is so important to the investigation as a whole. 

Men this powerful and wealthy can afford privacy in a world where everything is connected; lawyers to sue media organizations for breach of privacy, homes that run on their own private server network, requiring physical access to case and crack into, cyborg personal assistants and secretaries to do the bulk of the online legwork so they never have to expose their own cyberbrains to viruses or other intrusions at all. And sometimes, the only way to get access is to play along. Proto’s at a very classy party tonight, quite different from previous ones he’s attended while in-character as Souji Kondo. The others were all held at public venues, but this one is being held in the very flashy penthouse apartment of a local magnate named Masayuki Hirano, ostensibly to show off and celebrate his collection of antique kimono. Hirano is one of the suspects that Section 9 can’t adequately check out due to his inaccessibility, and therefore Proto’s attendance at this party is rather convenient, all things considered. 

Souji is not precisely a guest here, tonight. No, he has been hired to model, and has been here since 5PM, so specialist hairdressers and stylists could help him into his garments. His long, layered hair has been carefully combed and put up in an ahistorical topknot, oiled and then waxed to keep it in place, and the kimono he is wearing is a contemporary recreation of an adolescent boy’s furisode kimono. Furisode kimono are now exclusively female in the 2030s, but were originally garments that denoted youth rather than gender from the early 17th century until the early 20th century. 

The furisode he is wearing is a deep indigo blue in simple chalk stripes, topped with an elaborate uchikake brocaded with a multitude of tiny golden birds playing amidst somber gray branches. The weave of the outer kimono is so detailed and delicate that the branches seem to fool the eye into an illusion of dimensionality, as though one could reach out to grasp them. The effect is stunning when he moves, as the long sleeves sway, giving an impression of a breeze stirring the branches so the little birds look as though they are leaping around. 

“Exquisite,” Hirano had said, clapping his soft, plump hands with glee when the stylists had brought Proto out of the bedroom being used as a dressing room for his approval, and Proto had shuffled forward a few steps and bowed prettily, on cue. It is not easy moving in these layers of garments, not when one is accustomed to the relative freedom of Western clothing, but Souji was taught beforehand how to walk in a woman’s kimono before the agency had sent him on to rehearsals for the event, and Proto has downloaded control software to make sure that he won’t slip up while in-character. The secret is a careful, pigeon-toed stance so that one’s slippered feet thrust the hem of the kimono outwards. 

Proto’s idea to have Togusa reinforce Souji’s innocence with a well-timed phone call and explanation to the modeling agency was a good one — they might not have fired Souji outright, but they probably would have hesitated to send him to a party at a millionaire’s home, crammed full of priceless objets d’art, if they had suspected him of doing anything shady. The models hired for this party are meant to be walking exhibits, highlighting the precious originals displayed in climate-controlled display cases set against the walls and in rows spaced evenly apart in one of the rooms set aside to Hirano’s extensive collection. Proto understands that Hirano’s kimono collection spans two warehouses in Kyoto, besides what is being shown here. These are just the highlights of what he owns, the treasures of his collection.

As Souji, Proto’s only real job for the evening is to look pretty, move gracefully, and entertain the guests and host alike with charming conversation. Most of the women’s kimono is being modelled by geiko contracted from okiya in Kyoto, but the institution of the kagema (historical male courtesans), is long dead, and therefore the men’s kimono are all being modelled by young male models such as himself. This is slightly ironic, Proto thinks, because he’s been mistaken for a call boy before, and not even while pretending to be Souji. 

The real objective Proto has for this evening, however, is to sneak some physical taps into Hirano’s data and phone lines. Hirano prizes his privacy, which means that his penthouse runs its own network unconnected to the wider world. It’s very much a very upscale version of a bachelor pad, with examples of erotic art hanging on the walls — the odd shunga here and there, but also paintings, photographs. Proto spies a genuine Mapplethorpe hanging on one of the other bedroom walls. It’s all very artistic and coy, but the theme is very apparent. Hirano even has a jammer running so that nobody can try to run surveillance on him via drone, which means that Proto will need to run a black-bag job. 

That’s fairly simple for someone with Proto’s skills and expertise — have Victorinox Cybertool, will travel. Except of course, that he doesn’t have access to any of his equipment right now: it’s all locked away in the bedroom that was used as a dressing room for the male models. And he’s also not particularly interested in accessing crawlspaces and suchlike while wearing four layers of silk robes, control software or not. Instead he smiles insincerely and circulates among the very rich, some of whom ogle him openly. At least nobody touches him, not with the expensive replica kimono he’s wearing tonight. The guests are all well-bred enough to know how tedious cleaning a fine kimono is, since the garment has to be unstitched and the individual panels washed, dried, and then touched up if the dye has faded from the laundering. 

Several other people on the suspects list are also present at this party, but Proto can’t be sure if it’s because Hirano is part of a conspiracy or if it’s merely coincidental, due to familiarity with the fashion industry and common interests, and also because a guest list is no indication of a wide-ranging cabal. Most conspiracy groups, if they do exist, would probably do better than to have their members listed on something as publicly accessible as a personal assistant or social secretary’s contacts list, non-disclosure agreement or not. 

Proto gains a golden window of opportunity after the party ends, as the stylists and dressers come back in to help the models change. The geiko have brought their own dressers from Kyoto, and are merely changing from replicas of historical garments to the kimono they normally wear. The male models, on the other hand, are at this point quite thoroughly sick of shuffling delicately around in up to four or five layers of fabric. This results in a minor rush towards the one large bedroom they’re using as a changing room, which means it’s fairly effortless for Proto to use all that activity as a screen for what he’s doing. 

This penthouse apartment has its own dedicated network separate from cyberspace, which means that individual hackers have to find a wired connection to access it. Proto has in Souji’s saggy old backpack a pair of small wireless taps; he just has to find the right place to deploy them. Each of the bedrooms has the right wall ports and sockets for a dedicated terminal setup in case the penthouse’s current owner wants to convert any of them into a private office. Moreover, Hirano leans too heavily on his personal network’s independence from net infrastructure for security, and hasn’t actually thought about the consequences of conveniently having everything in this house: appliances, doorbells, commodes, hooked up to the Internet of Things. 

This means that an experienced black-bagger like Proto can very easily use one of his automated wireless commodes (why would a toilet need net access, Proto wonders, and comes up with no satisfactory answer) as a bug, which is what he does. He excuses himself from the dressing room once he’s changed into street clothes, and slips out to the shared bathroom. It’s a short wait outside before the person using it before him exits, and then he’s left to his own devices. 

Proto’s enhanced vision scans the bathroom for cameras and finds none hidden in the walls or behind the large, well-lit mirror, and then he unzips his jeans and unbuckles his belt, tugging his garments downward to provide the appropriate rustle if someone is indeed outside waiting for him. Heaven forbid they assume he’s sneaking in here to do a line of coke, because they’d probably ask for some, given his present company. Then he kneels carefully beside the toilet and pops a panel open, unscrews the housing to reveal its logic board. 

Manufacturing and parts homogenization means that creating a proprietary board for everything is one more R&D step that you have to pay engineers to do, and then the testing itself costs money. Might as well use the same hardware platforms for everything, be they wireless-enabled fridges that allow you to display recipes and play music while you cook, or toilets that are supposed to be able to test your urine for albuminuria or diabetes. This one uses a fairly standard logic board found in older-model portable net terminals, but also in almost every “smart” appliance produced in Japan. 

That means that Proto’s taps will fit in the hardware. He slots one into a spare chip socket on the logic board and then puts the housing back on, hiding all traces of his work before he flushes once, and then again. Then he pulls his jeans back up, fastens up, and stops to wash his hands at the sink. “Ishikawa,” he sends on cybercomm, testing his connection to Section 9. 

“Hearing you loud and clear, Proto. Status report,” Ishikawa says. 

“I just put a tap in one of Hirano’s toilets.” Proto sends. “Why anyone would need a net-accessible toilet, I don’t want to know. I’m going to try to plant a backup in case this one gets found.” 

“Try his coffee maker or something.” Borma suggests over their encrypted channel.

“I’ll see,” Proto says with the mental equivalent of a shrug. “Catering staff could still be there.” Not that he expects catering staff to care, but they could be overseen by actual servants, who would. 

“Be careful,” Ishikawa says. 

Nobody is waiting in the hallway when Proto comes out, and he saunters easily in stocking feet to the massive living room, and from there to the dining annexe and to the kitchens, where the evening’s hor d'oeuvres are being put away. “Mind if I sneak a snack?” he asks one of the caterers. “I haven’t eaten since this afternoon, since I was scared of staining the kimono I was wearing, or even worse, needing to go to the bathroom in it.”

“Sure,” she says, “we can’t exactly bring it out for a later party, so it usually gets taken home by us, or thrown out. And between you and me, I’ve done three parties this week and I never want to eat another canapé again. Want I pack you some?” 

“Is that okay?” Proto asks doubtfully, not because he’s afraid, but because Souji would be. He personally doubts Hirano would care where the leftovers went. 

There’s a step behind him, and someone speaks in a soft, oily voice, very smoothly. “I do appreciate a young man with a good appetite.” Proto turns because Souji would, even though he’s already recognized the owner of the voice. It’s Hirano. His gaze runs up and down Proto in the way someone might consider just another bite of foie gras-stuffed quail after an extravagant feast, with a certain amount of guilty pleasure and unassuaged hunger. 

“Sir,” Souji says, freezes on the spot. So do most of the caterers. A fork falls from the hand of one of them, chimes softly on the floor, but nobody moves to pick the fallen utensil up. Proto raises his pulse rate on purpose, to give himself the right tremor, from nerves he does not feel. And he considers, palms the tap he’s holding in his left hand. He’ll have to give the coffeemaker a pass. 

“By all means,” Hirano says, waving carelessly at the platters of exquisite food, “take some with you. But there is a price, young man.” 

Proto raises an eyebrow, tries to put on the right blend of fear and diffidence that should sit on Souji’s face, but it comes across more as curiosity instead. This is slightly out of character for Souji, who is supposed to be smart enough to know when he’s in over his head. But Hirano doesn’t know Souji like the other young models do, which means he probably won’t even notice. 

“I like to take a nightcap in the evening,” Hirano says, “especially after my guests have gone home. You’ll join me, won’t you?”

Proto knows that Souji isn’t given a choice here, and while Souji would be impulsive enough to just refuse and deal with the consequences, come what may, Proto can’t, because there are things he can learn from this. He knows he’s putting himself in danger. “Depends on what you’re having,” he says instead. “I’d love a drink, but I also have standards.” 

“Oh, good. Very good,” Hirano says. He takes Proto by the elbow and steers him firmly, if gently, back out of the kitchen, murmurs something to one of his bodyguard/assistants on the way out, and it’s something Proto manages to hear, thanks to his better-than-human hearing. 

_Make sure we’re not interrupted._

— 

To Proto’s relief, the nightcap is an actual nightcap — shots of Calvados, an exquisite Normandy apple brandy. But Hirano clearly has more in mind. They’re in an anteroom connecting to Hirano’s bedroom, a good place to plant his second tap, if he can get away with it unnoticed. So as Souji he wanders around the room, exploring what he sees by touch. A glass case full of antique netsuke, many of erotic subject matter. Hirano’s seamless wooden desk, carved from a single enormous half-log. A functioning bronze astrolabe, an extensive wet bar. Hirano’s terminal is a portable, which means there’s no place to hide a tap on it, not without opening its casing, which means Proto will have to go through the comms equipment under the desk if wants to bug this room, too. 

The bedroom lies beyond an open door, all plush carpet and antique wall hangings, and Proto’s enhanced vision picks up bright metal fittings gleaming in the low light beyond, fastened to bedposts. He’s going to have to tread extremely carefully here. It’s one thing to seduce, or be seduced by a mark in order to gain access to their network and bug it. It’s another thing entirely to be restrained and helpless so he can’t even do what he actually came here to do. Not that restraints generally have that much of an effect on Proto, not when he can dislocate most of his joints painlessly on command, but doing so would blow his cover entirely. 

Beyond the bedroom is a beautiful patio, Proto knows from the floor plans, and a possible escape route if his cover gets blown and he has to leave in a terrible hurry. 

“You’re awfully curious about my little treasures,” Hirano says, from the low armchair on which he’s comfortably ensconced. “Or are you just nervous? Don’t be. I don’t bite.” 

“Those netsuke. They’re genuine?” Proto knows they are. But many Japanese people, Souji included, are completely unaware of how ridiculously erotic Japanese historical art was.

“Every last one of them,” Hirano says with a little chuckle. “It’s something the educational system has brushed aside entirely, due to Western influence. A pity. Nowadays pornography is tawdry and artless. Such little treasures are no longer being made.”

“I noticed the art you have everywhere,” Proto says, pretending to study the netsuke in the display case. “A real Mapplethorpe, too. That’s impressive.”

Hirano smiles with childlike glee, “Oh, a fellow connoisseur of the arts, are you?”

“Just someone who took a modern art elective at Berkeley. Part of the Russo-American liberal arts core,” Proto shrugs.

“Yes, the Russo-Americans have such a large degree of academic freedom despite their nation having been founded by religious ascetics.” That, Proto knows, is a myth. The Puritans, despite their religious fervor, were fully in support of sex within marriage, to the point where a woman of the historical period could have her marriage annulled if her husband did not perform. But he also knows the type of man Hirano is, and does not say it outright. “Smart and handsome. A well-turned young man.” Hirano swirls his brandy in its snifter, takes a long whiff of it. “You’re not doing this because you have to, I assume.”

“Modeling? No, it’s because I want to,” Proto says, and that’s true enough no matter which one of his identities is answering the question. Proto has to, because he needs to get to the bottom of his investigation, but Souji wants to, because he’s young and thinks it’s less boring than psychology right now.

“You’re new too, Souji Kondo,” Hirano says. “I know, because I didn’t recognize you tonight. I have a certain type I favor, you see.”

Proto decides not to reply, if only because it’s something he sees all too plainly. He lets Souji’s long hair veil his face as he looks down at the glass case, at his own reflection. There are cyberized bodyguards outside, that much he knows. He can feel their footsteps vibrating through the floor, telegraphing the massive weight of their bodies. Not Class A mil-spec bodies, probably Class B. They might even be armed, given the large amount of priceless art filling this penthouse. Which, Proto knows, is likely a fig leaf meant to justify the armed guards. 

He probably should have left without trying to plant his second tap. Hindsight is telling him that now. But perhaps he can still get out of this with a whole skin. And then his cybercomm pings once, as Ishikawa comes back on the line. 

“I don’t know if you’ve left yet,” Ishikawa says, “but we’re turning up very little on Hirano’s network. Either he keeps it all for the household appliances, or there’s a secondary network he does business through.” 

“I’m still there,” Proto says mentally, “I’m trying to tap his office.”

“Don’t do anything the Major wouldn’t, okay?” That is not helpful advice. The Major can and has done everything under the sun to get a mark’s cyberbrain and retinal signatures before.

“Might not have a choice about it,” Proto thinks tersely back. “I’ll keep you updated. I have to think.” 

Hirano has gotten up from his armchair and has walked up behind Souji. Proto can see this from the way light reflects off the glass display case, but he can also feel it in the vibrations on the wooden floor. Souji would notice the first, if not the second. “You’re not trying to sneak up on me, are you? I’d hate to spill my drink, it’d make such a mess.” 

“No, my dear,” Hirano says with another one of his oily little chuckles. “I was just wondering which one of my little treasures has you so fascinated.” 

“That one,” Proto points at an ivory replica of a diver woman, an ama, in an erotic embrace with a pair of octopuses. “It’s a quotation of the Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, is it not?” Proto is referring to a famous Hokusai woodcut in a book of shunga, depicting exactly the same topic. 

“Such taste you have,” Hirano says. “No, I don’t think I would say it’s a quotation per se, as much as a common cultural reference. The provenance of this netsuke proves that it predates the print itself. Living off the sea and by the sea, as we still do, the mind wanders on topics oceanic, and what delights could be found 40 fathoms deep.” 

“I don’t think most sea creatures would be very cooperative, though,” Proto says as Souji. 

“You’re probably too sheltered to have heard of how scandalously some dolphins behave around human swimmers. But I notice you’ve hardly touched your drink. Afraid I’ve spiked it?”

“That would insult your hospitality,” Proto says, very frankly.

“Indeed it would. Give me that.” Hirano takes Proto’s snifter away from him, swaps it with his own. “Here. They both can’t be spiked, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Now Proto will have no excuse to not drink. It’s a clever ploy, that, also manipulative to the extreme, something meant to keep Souji off-balance and vulnerable even if the drink isn’t spiked. He watches Hirano throw back the snifter of Calvados that was once in Souji’s hand, and knows without tasting it that the one he’s holding, that Hirano had been swirling around while he wasn’t paying attention, is definitely drugged. He doesn’t have a choice about it, though, and he drinks. 

Sensors studding Proto’s mouth and tongue alert him immediately. It’s GHB, a common date-rape drug, and while it has zero effect on Proto’s synthetic metabolism, it would affect Souji, who is meant to be mostly mortal flesh. At least, he thinks grimly, it’s been delivered in some very fine brandy. Hirano lets him leave the empty snifter behind on the display case, and guides him as he feigns a stumble towards the bedroom. 

“You’ll feel much better after a nap, dear boy,” Hirano says, and Proto closes his eyes and cuts control to his body. 

— 

The Major once said, while trying to seduce a mark, “When I don’t care to feel every little thing, I turn off the sense organs.” That’s a tempting course of action, Proto thinks, but it will also leave him vulnerable and unable to react if something truly threatens his identity, or his life. He lies silent and limp, having relinquished conscious control of his body, and waits to see what Hirano will do to him next. This was something he had anticipated could happen on this undercover assignment, but anticipating is not the same as experiencing. It is worse, because dread builds on anxiety and fear. Now, however, there is nothing left to do but endure, and survival becomes a simple matter of holding on to what is important. 

Proto’s memory is recording everything that is happening to his body, which is good. It’s going to be evidence in a court of law, if Hirano turns out to be unconnected to the conspiracy. His skin crawls, though, as Hirano rucks the hem of his t-shirt upwards to bare his back, and every reflex he possesses wants him to flinch away from that unwelcome touch, from each breath hot and humid against his synthetic flesh. He wants to take control of his body and reach out to strangle Hirano for daring to do this, his mind alight with rage and pain. 

But this would be akin to an animal gnawing its own leg off to escape a trap. A person who thinks and understands would endure and wait for the trapper to come back and kill them for setting the trap, and use their tools to extricate themselves, saving their limb. This is what Proto has to do. So he opens an encrypted channel to Reiko, on his support team, because she’s spoken about their privileged doctor-patient relationship before, and because he senses that she would understand. 

“Reiko,” he thinks at her, as Hirano flips him over and begins to fumble at the buckle of his belt, “are you awake?”

Her voice comes over muzzy from sleep, because Saito has the night shift today. “Mhm. It’s 2 in the morning. Ish. Is it an emergency?”

“I need you to talk to me, to distract me,” Proto tells her. “Can you do that?”

“Okay. I have no idea what’s going on, but that sounds like an emergency,” Reiko says. “I’m patching the others in. Turn your tracker on, we’ll come get you.”

“No. Please, Reiko,” Proto begs her. “I can do this. I just — I just need someone to talk to me, so I don’t think of what’s happening to my body right now.”

“Oh, Proto.” Reiko sounds as though she’s about to cry. And then he hears her take a deep breath. “Okay. Do you want to hear about the time I helped prank a professor at MIT?” she asks. 

“Yes. I’d love to,” Proto says, desperate for the sound of her voice in his head. “I’ve heard it’s an amazing school.”

“Well, it is,” Reiko sends, “but not really for many of the reasons people think it is. It’s a top science school mostly because the student body is self-selecting. We’re all nerds with aspirations of becoming wholly overeducated. But what they really teach there, besides the stuff you can learn at any other major research institution, is how to keep generating ideas. Creativity isn’t something you’re born with, you know? It’s actually a process you can nurture and encourage by providing the right kind of learning structure.” She still sounds as though she’s crying, but has managed to master her emotions in the past few minutes, and Proto feels an ache in his chest at the fact that she’s suffering because of him.

He doesn’t feel as though he knows the right response for that, however, and only reaches out more for this fragile connection with her, because it’s what he needs to focus on right now. “Right. That’s why Japanese universities do well, but their alumni can’t out-invent students from American universities.” 

“For the most part, yeah,” Reiko says, “although the disparity has narrowed in the past two decades. And the pranking culture at MIT is part of it. We learn to sidestep rules and to get away with outrageous things as long as we’re not harming anyone, that’s learning to be creative around existing regulations. It teaches you how to think outside the box.” 

“So what was the prank you pulled?” he asks her.

Reiko sounds nostalgic through the tears, sad and happy at once. “Firstly, we call them hacks, at MIT. They’re named such because of the origins of hacking culture, where overeducated compsci types would use their knowledge to gain illicit access to phone trunks. Kind of like the black-bag work you do so well.”

“Yeah.” It’s hard to concentrate only on her voice when he has to remember to make his skin bruise in natural-looking patterns, so as to sell the illusion that he’s human and uncyberized. At least his blood has been dyed red, to match human blood, and he can disguise his rapid healing with more color-shift chromatophore activation.

“Well, in that hack, we relocated a professor’s office. Big deal, you say. We relocated it upside down without alerting building security, it was a heckuva job,” Reiko says. 

“Neat trick,” Proto says. He wants to laugh at the visual, but all that comes out via the comm is a strangled huff. “How did you manage to pin the furniture to the ceiling without having it fall down?” Power tools would have had to be involved, for that to work, and they’re noisy. 

“We actually made pepakura replicas of all the furniture in his office, his potted plants, his desk, his chair, his CPU and monitor. The finished stuff was printed and cut out with CNC lasers, then smuggled in as flat pieces that we assembled with glue. It was a medium cardstock, so you couldn’t sit on it, but it held up pretty well being suspended from the ceilings with strategically placed tacks.” Reiko sounds proud even now.

It is a neat trick. “That’s pretty brilliant,” Proto says.

“We hid his furniture in another part of the building, of course, and we tapped into the building IR feeds to capture the look on his face when he showed up for work the next morning.” Reiko sends Proto an image after that, of her baffled professor staring upwards at all his re-oriented furniture. It’s almost a perfect expression of surprise, the kind of look someone would describe as stereotypical if an actor had attempted to imitate it. 

“How did you evade security?” Proto asks her, after he dismisses the image from his augmented vision. It’s helping, this talk, and he isn’t sure if he can even articulate how much he appreciates her doing this, now or at some impossible future time. The present has him in such an awful grip that he can’t imagine a future right now. 

“Social engineering. I made friends with one of the janitorial staff and we bribed her with baked goods to ignore us sneaking in the morning of and putting all the stuff up. We did a few dry runs in a dorm room so we’d know what went where. The rehearsals were more intense than the actual hacking itself, come to think of it. We helped put his original furniture back in place afterwards, so there was nothing to yell at us for.” In this fashion Reiko talks Proto through ignoring the abuses enacted upon his body and self, sparing him as much hurt and shame as she can. They talk for two hours, until Proto is sure that Hirano has fallen asleep. 

“Thank you, Reiko,” he tells her. “I think he’s finally fallen asleep.”

“Do you need an evacuation now? Saito and Maven are ready to move, if you need us.” So the others know. Proto can’t bring himself to feel any more ashamed than he already is, and he doesn’t know why. Perhaps he’s finally reached that point of suffering where he just can’t feel anything any more. 

“No. I still have something else I need to do,” Proto tells Reiko. He shifts experimentally in bed, glancing under his eyelashes at Hirano’s back. He’s still sleeping. Good. “How much do they know about what happened to me?”

“Only that something is up and I’ve spent the last two hours talking to you. But we’re all professionals. I’m sure they can infer.” That is quite true. Everyone at Section 9 has been trained to handle sexual assault cases, even if such things aren’t usually under their jurisdiction. 

“I’m sure they can,” Proto says after a few moments of silence. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and winces involuntarily, turns his sense of pain off while his regeneration kicks in. “I’ll get back in touch with you in a few hours, once I can leave without breaking my cover.”

“Crash meeting?” Reiko asks. 

“Yes,” Proto says. He reaches down for his discarded clothing and pulls the multitool from the sheath on his belt, flicks its blade open. “Prepare the memory transfer equipment, and get hold of a sexual assault examination kit, please.” The tap’s still in his right front pocket, and easily retrieved. 

“I’ll do that. You know I’m a mandatory reporter, right? I’ll have to tell someone what happened to you.” Proto feels a great, unreasonable gout of anger at that, that and the weight of a terrible temptation. He could sever Hirano’s cervical spine while he sleeps, here and now, and vanish out the patio, and nobody would ever guess. But he won’t, because killing one villain, horrid as he is, is not going to uncover the entire case, and he has a greater responsibility to the world.

“I know.” Proto tells Reiko as he walks very silently into the anteroom, making sure he’s not leaving any signs of his passage. “Can you wait until the crash meeting? I don’t want anyone to come rescue me out of anger, not right now. It could complicate things.”

Reiko sighs. “I don’t like to do it, but I understand why. Yes. I’ll wait until then. Take care, Proto.”

“Thank you, Reiko.” There’s a panel under Hirano’s desk, and it opens easily when Proto uses the edge of his knife as a shim. He levers it upwards, and it swings up to reveal the communications equipment built underneath the floor. The screwdriver built into his multitool exposes the logic board easily as he loosens panels and swings them aside, and from there it’s an effortless process to snap the tap into a chip socket. He then swings the plastic panels back in place, tightening the screw, and slips the hardwood flooring back over the altered comms equipment. 

Time to go back and play unconscious for the rest of the night, while he coordinates with Borma and Ishikawa on a dive of Hirano’s data. 

— 

Proto is not actually asleep, of course. He’s been quietly shaking Hirano’s personal files loose and dumping them into a virtual sack marked “Section 9” and funneling the information HQ-ward. But he feigns confusion and alarm when one of Hirano’s bodyguards comes to wake him in the morning. Hirano has left by then, which is good, because Proto is not sure he could restrain himself from committing murder if they had to talk again. 

“What —” Proto says as Souji, as he props himself up on an elbow and then abandons the attempt due to a false headache. 

“Mr. Hirano enjoyed your conversation greatly,” the cyborg bodyguard tells him, “but he had to leave early due to some pressing business. He’s instructed me to make sure you arrive at whatever destination you wish, safely, and also to present you with a token of appreciation.” 

The bodyguard hands Proto a small silk-wrapped package, and he unfolds it to find the priceless ivory netsuke. Clever. He knows that he’s going to leave here with the item in his backpack, whether he wants to or not, and it’ll then be used to justify charges of theft if he tries to go public about the rape. This is definitely not the first time Hirano has pulled this, he knows in his gut. A young model, unsure of their place in the world, would be intimidated by the bodyguard, possibly enough so that they would not be able to go to the police. And it’s not as though the police are especially understanding in such cases, especially when the assailant is someone rich, powerful, and well-connected, and especially so if the victim is male, because of existing double standards about sexual assault. 

So much easier to just swallow their pain and shame, and hope that Hirano continues to be a patron. But the easy thing is not always right. Proto dresses as quickly as he can — a natural response from anyone who’s in his situation, and leaves Hirano’s penthouse escorted by 2m of humanoid refrigerator. From the lobby downstairs he’s directed to a waiting cab, which is good. He can go straight to the safehouse from here, instead of having to go back to his agency housing, if he were riding in a chauffeured car instead. 

“I’m out,” Proto sends to Reiko, over an encrypted channel. “I’ll be there in maybe 15 minutes.” 

“Okay. I’ll get ready and tell the others you’re coming,” Reiko says, her voice brisk, professional. 

“Thank you.” 

— 

The worst thing, Proto thinks, as he steps into the safehouse, is the pity in his colleagues’ faces, as though he has been permanently diminished by what has just happened last night. It’s disappointing, he thinks, but also understandable, and he chooses not to speak up if only because he’s unsure of how to discuss everything. Instead he walks wordlessly into Reiko’s bedroom, its floor freshly swept so she won’t trip a false positive on physical evidence, steps onto a piece of paper placed for his convenience, and begins to undress. 

It’s not easy to do, not with her watching, not especially because he’s kept the bruises that would remain on Souji’s skin, for the evidence recordings, and he can hear her gasp at the sight of them between his knees and on his inner thighs, finger-marks bruised into his hips, tooth-marks gnawed into the skin of his neck and shoulders. A wave of shame and despair threatens to overwhelm him then, and he reaches mentally outwards and mutes his emotions. It’s something he’s done before in times of distress, which is another reason why he’s better suited to this assignment than anyone else at Section 9. 

Cyborgs, even the most cyberized ones, are still human within their prosthetic shells. They cannot mute their emotions, nor can they edit their memories reliably to minimize trauma. Not only can Proto do the above two things, he is also immune to the knock-on neuroarchitectural changes that trauma can induce. His sorrow, now a manageable vague depression, still crowds him as he steps off the piece of paper so Reiko can put his clothing into evidence bags. The paper itself is folded neatly up and goes into its own evidence bag, to collect any hair or fiber evidence that might be needed for a full investigation. 

Next comes the hardest part. Proto lies down on his side of the bed, also covered with a large piece of paper, as Reiko examines him personally, intimately. Her gloved hands are light and gentle and very professional, but each touch brings an unwelcome memory to the surface of his mind, and he turns his sense of touch off for the process. It’s easier after that, to just lie there and not feel and not think of anything, for the space of a half hour. “I’m done,” she tells Proto, and he hears her capping a vial, closing a zip on an evidence bag. He almost doesn’t want to climb back into his own skin, but he will have to eventually, so he does. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” he tells her, “and then we can do the memory recording after that.”

“Okay,” she says, waving him over to the master bathroom. “Do you want me to bring you your clothing and toiletries, or would you rather Saito did that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Proto says. “Whoever’s free.” He knows this is a thoughtless thing to say to someone who sat by him last night and helped him endure his ordeal, but he just wants hot water on his skin. He wants to scrub himself clean, and let go of Souji’s pain and Souji’s bruises right now. Proto turns the water as hot as possible given existing safeguards — a steamy 41 degrees Celscius, and he stands under it, letting it melt the wax combed into his hair to keep it perfect. 

There’s the footsteps of someone coming into the room to confer with Reiko. It’s Saito, Proto senses even with the water hissing around him, because of his lighter step. There’s a few seconds’ pause, and then a careful tap on the bathroom door. “I’m coming in,” Saito says through it.

“Go ahead,” Proto says. He cuts the flow of the water and sticks his hand out of a gap in the sliding shower door, and Saito hands him a fresh washcloth and his toiletry bag. He also looks as though he’s going to kill someone, which is unusual. Saito is very rarely outwardly enraged. That’s usually Batou or Togusa’s thing, the both of them, because they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Proto takes his toiletries and slides the door shut. “I know you want to, but I don’t need you to go out there and kill anyone for me,” Proto says after a moment of silence, and Saito sits down on the bathroom floor, his back against the high ofuro tub. 

“I would, you know.” Saito says, and Proto knows it. Has never doubted it, in fact. 

“I know you would,” Proto says, as he begins scrubbing himself down with the washcloth. Its sting reminds him of the boundaries of his skin, of what is truly unalterable, and it comforts him in a muted way. That’s because most of his emotional expression is still turned most of the way down, from the examination earlier. “That’s why I told you not to do it, at least not until the Chief figures out what to do from here on.”

“Remember when you were working on the Shibata case, and I told you I felt like I had to look out for you, in an older sibling sort of way?” Saito asks Proto. Proto remembers that conversation well.

“I do,” he says, and turns the water back on. 

“I feel like I’ve failed you,” Saito says through the hiss and splash of the running water. 

“Don’t,” Proto says, glad that he can’t see the look on Saito’s face from where he’s standing. “I knew I was going into danger with this assignment. I chose to because it’s a type of danger I can handle better than anyone else on the team. I can turn my emotions off. I can have traumatic memories deleted without having it affect my personality. I’m not okay right now, I admit, but trying to insulate me from it would amount to stopping me from doing my job.” 

“You only sound this okay right now because you have your emotions turned off,” Saito says, which is bleakly funny. Also very true. To continue functioning as a person, Proto has to turn himself into a machine, at least for a little while. 

“You’re right,” he says, “I’m going to take some time out later, have a good cry. You know, I did that, the day we went out to arrest Ayumi Shibata. Because you have to let it out somehow.” 

Saito lets out a bitter laugh at that. “Sounds healthier than drinking.”

A drink. The memory of the Calvados makes Proto’s skin crawl again, but the idea of obliterating his consciousness with alcohol remains appealing nevertheless. Too bad it doesn’t work on his metabolism. “I never had that option in the first place,” Proto says, with genuine regret. “Saito, I don’t need your pity, nor do I need your anger. What I need you to do, is understand that I’m still capable of knowing what I do need.”

“Okay.”

— 

Proto does let himself cry later, but not until he’s had his memories recorded onto an external drive, and then deleted so he doesn’t have to look at them ever again. They’re evidence now, and will remain that way, archived until he decides that maybe he can deal with them further down the line, and downloads them. 

Maven’s the easiest to deal with out of the whole team, but she used to be a guerilla in South and Central America before she wound up taking up corporate security work, and then police work in Fukuoka, before being seconded to Section 9. She’s probably had the most experience with sexual assault survivors out of Proto’s entire support team, and therefore she does not fuss over him, nor does she grieve. She simply treats him as she has the rest of the time, and he appreciates it greatly. 

Maven does insist on feeding him a generous breakfast after she witnesses the memory deletion, however, and that comforts him enough that he starts letting himself feel again. 

“It’s always harder to cope with life if you haven’t eaten beforehand,” Maven says as she takes his plate for him. They generally do their own dishes, but he’s not inclined to object right now. 

“Thank you,” Proto says. “I don’t think I’d eaten anything since 5PM yesterday.”

Maven nods, and begins to wash up in the sink, and the homey, domestic sound of dishes clinking helps Proto relax a little bit as his emotions begin to surface slowly. His hurt is complex, mostly underwater in his mind the way an iceberg is, and it’s going to take him a long time to process it. But it’s a lot easier without the memories, which he knows are distressing, playing in his head again and again.

“It’s hard, you know,” Maven says, apropos of nothing. “When everyone, in their good intentions, tries to protect you, or comfort you, but they’re acting different, and that can make you feel like you’re permanently marked. I know.” 

“It is.” Maven does not generally talk about her past, and Proto knows this admission is more than she’d normally let slip, most of the time. But this is not a normal time. “Thank you for understanding.”

“I can do no less.” 

—

Reiko’s still in the bedroom when Proto decides to lie down for a nap. Not a physical one, since he spent most of the night motionless while his mind was elsewhere on the net, but a mental one. Because he’d like a brief time dedicated to not thinking at all. She’s sitting wordlessly at her desk, and gives a small, guilty start when Proto knocks. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I could wait, if you’re busy.”

“I was just filing my report to the Chief,” Reiko says, her eyes hard and bright in her perfectly sculpted face. 

“The Chief?” Proto asks. He had expected her to send her report to Togusa, who’s currently the field commander here at Section 9, following Batou’s refusal of a promotion. 

Reiko sighs. “This is serious enough that I decided to escalate. He can decide for himself whether he wants the rest of the team involved. Also, confidentiality. What we all know as your support team remains between us, but Togusa may not be able to keep things secret.”

“You’re not trying to get me pulled from the assignment, are you?” Proto asks, and then regrets it the moment the words leave his lips. 

Reiko looks almost insulted at that. “I’m still worried about you, but no. I think you’re the final arbiter of what you think you can and cannot do. But the Chief has to be responsible for all of us, and I have to tell someone because of regulations, so, the Chief.” 

“Right,” Proto says. “Good point.” Reiko is on the verge of tears, Proto realizes, and he might have pushed her too far. “I’m sorry,” he says, against a terrible sensation of guilt. 

Reiko wipes furiously at one eye, and then the other, as though ashamed at her own tears. “It was very hard hearing how much emotional pain you were in, last night, and knowing that there was nothing I could do about it besides tell you silly stories about my time at MIT.”

Proto only answers after he’s crawled onto his side of the bed, tired from thinking too much. “But they weren’t silly stories to me. They were a lifeline. I don’t even know how to tell you how much help and comfort you gave me.” 

Reiko climbs on top of the bed, on top of the covers, to Proto’s surprise, and he almost flinches when she does so. But the weight of her body is reassuring, not threatening, and he reacts only with mild surprise when she puts an arm around his chest and rests her head on his shoulder. “What happened to our doctor-patient relationship?” Proto asks her very gently, not entirely seriously. 

“Well,” she says after a few moments of thought, “I prescribe a platonic hug, to be administered before bed. Go to sleep, Proto. I’ll stay here with you.” 

“Thank you,” Proto says, before he closes his eyes, and puts his mind in hibernate mode. He wakes automatically when Reiko leaves the bed ten minutes later, and waits motionlessly for her to leave the room. It is only then that he allows himself to cry, weeping silently into his pillow so that nobody else will hear him. 

The damnedest thing, however, is that crying, which worked last time, does not work this time. The grief Proto is feeling, and the shame, are far too much to be easily soluble in tears and excreted that way. More tears come every time he thinks he’s run out, and in the end he’s forced to stagger out of bed and wash his face because his pillow feels soaked through. He’s making himself drink from the faucet, to halt the sobs that threaten to leak out around the edges of his professional mask, when a notification comes on in his head. 

It’s the Chief. 

“I’m pulling you from your undercover assignment, Proto,” Chief Aramaki says without preamble. 

“Sir —” Proto thinks, formulating a protest instantly, but he doesn’t get a chance to use it.

“No complaints. I’ve received Reiko’s report, yes, but that’s not the only reason why I’m pulling you. Borma and Ishikawa have had a breakthrough, and we want all hands to report to the HQ as soon as possible.” This is somewhat more promising, at least.

Proto knows what this means. “Yes, sir. Does that mean that Souji Kondo needs to vanish?”

“Yes,” the Chief says. “Sanitize his lodgings. I’m authorizing Ishikawa to wipe the agency files now.”

“Understood.” Proto says. 

— 

It’s a trivial matter for a trained operator of Proto’s skill to make a man vanish entirely, especially when he has been playing that man in the first place. Souji’s belongings are quietly spirited out his room window under the cover of optic camo, and go into the convenient garbage pile where the evidence of his illicit tea parties used to go. Saito, assisting on the job, arranges the trash bags so that the bag full of secondhand clothing and paper books is hidden under bags of reeking rubbish, which means nobody is going to check their contents. They’ll go out with the gomi and into a dump, probably. 

Souji’s portable terminal remains in his saggy backpack, along with a few other items that need expert disposal — his keycard and ID among them. Proto also keeps the small old man cactus for sentimental reasons. It can live on his desk at work and keep him company in the HQ. It’s good to shed Souji’s identity at last, and Proto feels a little bit better — and rather more like himself by the time Reiko pulls into the HQ building. His hair still smells like bleach. It was the last thing they did in the rented safehouse, before they finished packing their gear in an unmarked van. Proto had asked Reiko to help him to bleach his hair back to the color it was. She might have overcorrected a bit, given that it’s on the paler end of his usual cornsilk blond, but it’s acceptable enough for now. 

Proto has still got Souji’s layered haircut, naturally, but it pulls back into a bun easily enough, and that will have to do until it grows out enough that he can just have the ends trimmed level. Proto’s also shed Souji’s tan and freckles on the way back to Section 9’s HQ, and put his own watch back on — something that helps center his sense of identity. He’s wearing his own clothes now, jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt similar to, but not identical to what Souji would wear, and they simply smell right to him. It’s even more of a comfort to go upstairs to his locker to retrieve his sidearm and shoulder holster, his wallet and badge, and carry them with him too. 

It’s as though Proto has donned, piece by piece, some kind of invisible armor, and he feels almost entirely himself by the time he enters the Chief's office, his favorite rain jacket rustling around him as he tugs it in place. And then Batou claps him on the shoulder and he stiffens, flinches visibly in a reaction that betrays his inner distress. Batou, to his credit, does not look hurt. He only gives Proto a silent once over, reassessing, as Proto makes a hasty apology. 

“I’m sorry,” Proto says, “I didn’t mean to —”

“Don’t worry about it,” Batou says. This is the gentlest he’s sounded since the Major resigned six months ago, and Proto feels almost naked under Batou’s careful gaze. This provokes a spike of fear that he fortunately does not show, but that anxiety sours into depression. Proto can tell himself he’s okay all he wants, and justify his fitness to keep working with all kinds of statements on how his cognition works differently from a human’s, but they are just that, justifications. 

Proto has never been more aware that he is not fine. 

Batou speaks quietly in Proto’s mind, wordlessly, over an encrypted channel. “Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I understand.” 

“Everyone seems to understand,” Proto says a little bitterly — which is, again, unfair. Batou is only trying to be a good colleague. 

“Let’s be honest,” Batou says, entirely unoffended. “We all say that, but nobody ever does. It’s an expression of wanting to understand, more than understanding itself. But even that is wishful thinking, because you wouldn’t want others to understand. Because it’d mean them having gone through what you did.” 

Proto fights a shiver at how easily Batou has read his feelings. “You know, then.” Shame crawls up his skin, making him want to rub at his forearms to dispel the phantom sensation. 

“No. I guessed,” Batou says. “I saw a lot of things in WWIV. I’m not going to tell anyone else about it unless you tell me to. But you’re not acting like yourself, and we’re all trained to read body language and look out for stress markers, and you’re not as unreadable as you think you are.”

“I need to work on that more,” Proto says, meaning the unreadability, but Batou takes his answer differently.

“It’s gonna take time,” Batou tells him, “and it’s going to be a hard road back. But you will be okay.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Chief pulls Proto from the investigation, and he struggles to figure out what to do next in the face of his pain. But his friends and colleagues step up, as does someone very special to him.
> 
> Content warning: Non-specific suicidal thoughts.  
> Content warning: Non-specific discussion of sexual assault.

There are eight field officers gathered in Section Chief Aramaki’s office — the number of pawns on one side of a chessboard. That they haven’t even decided to use one of the briefing rooms tells Proto something’s afoot — something so secret that they don’t even want to risk someone else in Section 9 knowing what they’re discussing presently. The Chief has plugged himself into the terminal into his desk to allow him to pull information from Section 9 servers — something he does extremely rarely, given his preference for minimal cyberization. 

Proto is aware that the Chief doesn’t even have an external memory setup, mostly because Proto himself serves in that function when he’s being an aide and secretary. Proto does not directly store Chief Aramaki’s memories per se, but his eidetic digital recall helps him supply numbers speechlessly to his boss over encrypted cybercomm, to help him make faster and better sense of budget reports and other paperwork being shoved his way. 

Proto is standing by one of the armchairs, next to Batou, because there isn’t enough seating for eight field officers in the Chief’s office. There are two comfortable armchairs and an equally comfortable couch that could fit three people, perhaps four if they were okay with being squeezed fairly closely. The Major, back in the old days, would sometimes perch on the edge of the Chief’s desk, a liberty that nobody else has attempted to take in her absence. They are Section 9’s Old Guard, the original eight field officers who served before the Chief began his broader expansion of Section 9’s ranks. Their number would have been ten, except for the Major’s resignation this April, and the loss of a field officer named Yano, who had been recruited at the same time Azuma had been. 

Paz is here, leaning wearily back on one end of the couch — he’s still tired from the flight back from Taipei, and Saito sits next to him, his expression carefully blank. Ishikawa takes the other end of the couch, and Borma’s tucked comfortably in one of the two armchairs. Azuma has the other. Which leaves Togusa standing with Batou and Proto, although he’s leaning casually against the armrest of Azuma’s armchair. Togusa looks furious, and Proto would wonder what he’s upset about, but he avoids internal speculation on the matter. This is especially because Togusa could very well be upset with Proto, or about something that has happened to him, and he doesn’t have the bandwidth to cope. 

Proto waits instead, and then turns his head smoothly, automatically, as though he were a camera panning, when the Chief turns the big screen on with a remote control. There’s a brief pop and flare as Paz lights a cigarette, and then he shifts himself so his back is pressed more against the armrest of the couch, so he can see the screen better. 

“I’ve summoned you here on such short notice because Proto’s undercover work has led to a breakthrough in our current case,” Chief Aramaki says without preamble. “He managed to plant a tap in Masayuki Hirano’s private network last night, and spent several hours diving the server for information that he forwarded to Borma and Ishikawa, who were able to follow up on several important details.” There’s a brief murmur from the assembled field officers, congratulatory glances in Proto’s direction, but he feels little joy or satisfaction. He just wants to see this investigation to the end. 

The Chief continues. “And while we’re also mentioning officers going above and beyond, thank you, Paz, for coming on such short notice.” 

“I was in the arrival lounge when you sent out the call anyway, Chief,” Paz says. He takes a long drag on his cigarette, the cherry flaring brightly like a firefly, and exhales a slow stream of smoke. 

The Chief then clears his throat, and Togusa steps up to his desk, clearing his throat. “Investigation and analysis of the data on Hirano’s server has revealed the full number of people abusing somnacin to mentally violate young, vulnerable models associated with the Niihama modeling industry — there are six of them, one of them an associate who is not currently involved in the abuse, but who is instrumental in enabling this abuse, because he’s their drug supplier.”

Togusa uses the remote control that the Chief has handed him to forward to the next slide, and Proto blinks in recognition. He’s seen most of these faces during his time undercover, at parties, largely, or fashion shoots. There’s Hirano, yes, also Tetsuya Imai, a fashion photographer. Akira Mizutani, another local magnate and Naoki Nishimura, modeling agency executive. Kiriko Fujioka, a junior assemblywoman. And the last face is Soren Taylor’s. 

“Hirano kept his archives of the assaults stored on an external server on his private network, without stripping the cyberbrain metadata from the recording. That’s how we were able to identify the other four conspirators, from their data streams encoded in Hirano’s cyberbrain. Moreover, I went over Hirano’s accounts personally, and he had listed payments from four of the conspirators under entries for ‘private parties’,” Togusa explains. Proto now understands Togusa’s anger. He would have had to watch every one of Hirano’s recorded VR sessions to glean that information — a horrifying and unsettling experience, even with the ability to delete sense-streams from the recording, so an investigator doesn’t have to feel themselves vicariously enjoying the violation of another human being. 

“And Taylor, he’s their supplier,” Proto suggests, “because that’s the only thing that would make sense.”

“Taylor’s been flying to and from New York on Hirano’s dime for two years now. Private jet. And Hirano’s accounts show repeated payments to him. He may not have known what they were using the drugs for, but he is their source, nevertheless.” the Chief says. “I have Sitara following up on him right now, and where he might have gotten the drugs from.” Sitara is a new addition to the team, newer than Kuro, Reiko, or Maven. Proto is, oddly enough, not privy to the Chief’s reasons for hiring her — she had simply shown up one August day, having freshly resigned from the American Empire’s CIA, and asked to speak to Section Chief Aramaki, and then been allowed to enter his office alone. 

They had talked at some length while Proto waited outside, alert in case she had been an assassin. Instead he had been asked to enter the office after 97 minutes had gone by to help provide the requisite paperwork she had been required to fill out, as a new hire, sans background check, testing, or further investigation. The last time this has happened at Section 9 was more than two years ago, when Proto had been shown his first job, and that’s largely because he was built to eventually become a field officer given time and training and also lacked a background that needed investigating. 

Taylor is not long for this world, Proto thinks, because Sitara is also the kind of person who used to do south-of-the-border work for the American Empire, prior to the 2020 outbreak of hostilities with Mexico. Sicarios, they’re called, and she probably knows more ways of making a man’s death look like an accident than Proto currently does, and he knows what he considers an uncomfortable amount on the topic. Which also explains why it’s only the Old Guard in the Chief’s office tonight, and another reason why Togusa is this upset. He’s the kind of man who would much prefer to take suspects in and have them tried under a court of law. But Section 9 is working with this level of secrecy because the secret of using somnacin for virtual torture cannot be allowed to become public.

Proto thinks of his conversation with Soren Taylor at the party Markus told Souji to go to. It’s only been a week, according to the timestamps in his memory, but it feels oddly unreal, as though his sense of time has now been knocked off true. Taylor had been flattering but principled in explaining why he didn’t sleep with models — because it wasn’t professional, and also because he hadn’t liked being treated as a stepping-stone to success that could be purchased with sex. How ironic then, that he has inadvertently enabled such depravity. 

Proto is smart and sophisticated enough, and has spent enough time working at Section 9, to know that humans are not wholly integral beings. People are not simply categorized as good and evil. Usually people come as a mixed bag — a bigot may be loyal to his friends. Someone with integrity in one area of their life may be completely corrupt in another. The world is complex and complicated, and so are the people who live within it. But he does feel slight disappointment, that someone who seemed so ethical about his personal life would also be covetous enough to be selling somnacin to a monster like Hirano. 

But then — it’s not as though Hirano is wholly bestial, either, no matter what he’s done, and how Proto feels about him. People are rarely such. His behavior is monstrous, yes, but an absolute monster he is not, if only because good is a matter of choice, and not an inherent quality. It is what you do, not what you are. It’s very easy, when you are frightened and hurting, as Proto is right now, to define someone who has hurt you as inhuman and therefore undeserving of the rights assigned to humanity. But choosing that easy route is ultimately the wrong thing to do, because horrible people are still people, and one should never make a habit of unpersoning anyone just to salve one’s wounded emotions.

In the grand scheme of things, Proto would agree with Togusa, that he would prefer each and every one of these conspirators to see trial. But he also understands the reality of things: that going to trial would be insufficient in several ways. Firstly, Japanese sexual assault laws are still lagging behind a connected reality, and it would be hard to try them for existing crimes in a court of law, if only because the statutes in question are written with physical assaults in mind. Secondly, these are people with power and connections, which means going to trial would be both controversial and dicey, with their access to high-powered defense lawyers. Many prosecutors would decline simply because they hate to lose cases.

And lastly, but most importantly, Section 9 cannot afford to have the conspiracy’s findings become public. Better for somnacin to remain obscure and forgotten as an attempt to create a veridical drug, than have it harnessed in combination with VR simulations to torture and brainwash people without physical proof. This is a secret Section 9 would not like the government of Japan to have access to, let alone any foreign powers such as the American Empire. Of course, the decision may already be out of their hands, depending on how the conspirators figured out how to rape others’ Ghosts. 

“What we need to do now,” the Chief says, over Proto’s increasingly detached thoughts, “is to establish the exact relationship between each of the conspirators. Find out how they learned to combine the drug with VR simulations to do what they did. Learn if they’ve spread the secret beyond their circle. We must have more information before we proceed. Batou, I’m assigning the main investigation to you.”

Togusa turns his head sharply, abruptly, as Paz draws again on his smoke, the ember on the cigarette-end flaring brightly. “Sir —” he tries to say, but the Chief shakes his head. 

“We will discuss this later. Proto, stay behind as well,” Chief Aramaki says, august, authoritative behind his wide desk. He looks tired and troubled, Proto thinks, unsettled by their recent discoveries.

“Yes, sir,” Proto says. 

The Chief nods. “Everyone else, dismissed.” The other field officers leave the room, filing steadily out. Paz hesitates to tap the ash off his cigarette in the ashtray on the Chief’s coffee table, and leaves last, his step dragging ever so slightly from fatigue. 

Chief Aramaki waits for the door to his office to close, before he speaks again. “Togusa. Proto. I’m benching the two of you for a week. Mandatory psychiatric leave, effective the moment you leave my office.” 

“Sir —” Togusa says again, “I’m fine.” 

“And we want you to stay that way,” The Chief says, his tone firm, but not admonitory. “That goes for you as well, Proto. I’m not requiring either of you to turn in your sidearms and badges. This is not a disciplinary action, and you’re still both going to be on call in case we do need you in an emergency. But take some time off. Proto, I’m leaving you the option of another week of leave after this one ends, if you do need it.”

“Yes, Sir.” Proto says, unable to summon the spirit to protest. He’s not sure what good the time off will do for him at this point, however. Still, he knows better than to object. 

“Yes, Sir,” Togusa says after Proto, looking as though he has just swallowed a live coal. “If there’s nothing else, Sir?”

“Nothing else, Togusa. You’re dismissed.”

Togusa nods and walks out of the office with a single backward glance at Proto, as though he has noticed something, but he shakes his head and leaves. What was that Batou had said, earlier? “You’re not acting like yourself.” It’s clear to Proto that he really isn’t being himself no matter how he can try to hide it. His distress is, apparently, apparent enough to make someone like Togusa, known for his discretion, to do a double take. 

“Take a seat, Proto, now that we’re done with the ordering-around,” the Chief says. On cue an Operator android comes into the room with a tray, and she brings them each a cup of coffee. The Operators know how everyone at Section 9 likes their tea or coffee, and Proto’s arrives pale and milky, very sweet. 

Proto sits, because he doesn’t know what else to do. Tears are coming unbidden to his eyes, and he halts the processes in his cognition that give him a semblance of involuntary movement — fidgets, all the little shifts in weight that a seated person does — because he can feel himself wanting to move, to pace, to flee. That he does not do. Instead he asks the Chief a question. “Who else knows, Sir?”

“Besides the both of us? Maven, Saito, and Reiko. Just as Reiko indicated in her report. Togusa will have to know eventually, because he’s our field commander and therefore also responsible for you, but it’s not an urgent matter.” The Chief has been wise to not mention the assault to Togusa just now. Proto suspects Togusa would have put his foot through the floor in sheer rage, given his current mood, and that would be counterproductive, because Togusa is mostly organic, and the floor, under the wood veneer tiles, is concrete. 

“Batou knows too,” Proto says after a moment of silence, “but he says it was an educated guess.”

The Chief nods, grunts softly. “Batou is a loyal and discreet man, and rather more perceptive than many people give him credit for. I would consider him a safe person to talk to, if I were of a mind to. But your wishes come first, Proto, and it’s not my secret to share. I only want to tell you what we’re all thinking right now, whether we know what happened to you last night, or not.”

“Which is, Sir?”

“You’re doing an excellent job of dissembling, but it’s obvious to us that you’re in pain even if we can’t see the cause, and we, as your colleagues and siblings in battle, and your commander — forgive us if we seem to intrude. This is not something we’re doing because there’s something wrong with you. This is because you have fought at our side, and we want to find a way to ease your hurt.” Proto knows this already, which is why he’s trying not to snap every time someone looks at him differently. But it is hard to bear. Maven was right. It’s the feeling that you’ve been permanently damaged, or the fear thereof, that makes the kindness of others so hard to accept. 

“Understood, Sir,” Proto says, without protest. 

“Now,” the Chief frowns, pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re not going to make me regret letting you keep your sidearm, am I?”

Proto knows the answer already, even if it isn’t a very good one. “No. There are many other ways I can end my life, Sir, if I wanted to. And I might feel more comfortable with its weight reminding me of who I am.” 

“That’s what I thought, Proto,” the Chief says, although he looks far from happy with Proto’s answer. “Dismissed. Go get something to eat, and rest. Do what you need to, to feel better, and don't worry about us. I can do my own paperwork.” 

“Thank you, Chief.” Proto finishes his cup of coffee, all in one hot, scalding draught. The heat and taste of it helps center him, helps him think of something other than how he’s feeling, and carefully he climbs out of his chair and leaves Chief Aramaki alone to his thoughts.

— 

The damnedest thing about this whole situation is that Proto truly does not know what will make him feel better. He would have done it already, if he had known. Reiko has thoughtfully left the old man cactus Proto had rescued from his destruction of Souji’s personal effects in the break room, along with his duffel bag containing several changes of clothing and his small toiletry bag. He’ll have to get rid of Souji’s products and swap back to his own, eventually. 

Proto takes the cactus first and lets himself into his locked office, and places The Chief in miniature on his desk, beside his terminal. He doesn’t bother with the lights, since he can see in the dark. There’s a lamp with a full-spectrum bulb on his desk, poised over a single miniature aloe vera, which he acquired to add some life to his office, and he rearranges the pots so that the aloe now shares its space with the cactus. He tests the lamp to make sure its circle of light adequately covers both small plants, and then turns it off, satisfied. The lamp runs on a timer, and both plants will be fine without watering for a week.

After that, he goes to the locker room and dumps out the contents of his toiletry bag on the way in, using the trash bin right beside the vending machine near the stairwell. His usual toiletries sit in their miniature bottles on one of the shelves, and he puts everything where it’s supposed to be, before he swaps out some of the clothes that Reiko has packed for other clothes hanging in his locker.

He could go home, he thinks, as he changes from his casuals into one of his suits — a chocolate-brown flannel, very suitable for this weather. The act of tying his necktie is routine, automatic at this point, a physical comfort. And then he puts on his coat, and in that act, remembers the photo Takumi sent him, of the charm written onto the canvas on one of his linen suits, and a wave of sheer unhappiness rises in him like a spring tide, disrupting his careful equilibrium. 

Oh, heavens. Takumi. What is Proto going to tell him now? What can he even say? And it’s not like Proto can even assume they’re still friends at this point, not when he had stepped over the boundaries of friendship and taken them into fraught, painful territory. _I. Am. Such. An. Idiot,_ Proto thinks, and he shuts his locker, presses his forehead briefly against the cool metal. Proto makes himself get the rest of his belongings together, slowly, methodically, because this is the only way he can get anything done right now. And he walks out of the locker room, not to take the elevator downstairs to the parking garage, but to go upstairs, to the hangar. 

— 

The Uchikomas are there, sitting in their bays, each of them, but the techs aren’t in sight. Uchikomas don’t get into trouble like Tachikomas did, and therefore they require a lot less personnel oversight and time. Proto closes his eyes as he walks in, though, inhales the scents of solvents and coolants, of old machine oil. The faint scent-trace of heated metal, though none of the Uchikomas are running hot at present. Maybe, maybe if he just doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes, he can convince himself that the hangar is the same place that he used to work in, before his promotion to field officer. 

Before the Tachikomas all sacrificed themselves to save thousands of lives, leaving him behind to grieve their absence. 

But it is not the same, because the Tachikomas would have greeted him by now, and had questions to ask him, in their endearing, exasperating way. He goes up to an Uchikoma at random and leans against it, just for the semblance of contact, and its three-lensed eye swivels to watch him. 

“Am I required for duty, Sir?” it asks him in its flat monotone voice. 

“No,” Proto says, “it’s just that you remind me of someone I used to know.” It is like trying to grasp a shadow, Proto thinks, even with his cheek pressed up against its armored carapace. What he is reaching for is something intangible, something that is not here. “A long time ago,” Proto tells the Uchikoma, as though he were telling a child bedtime story, “before you were built at Kenbishi’s foundries, we had Tachikomas in this hangar instead. They were painted blue instead of green, like you are. I was built to be their sibling and companion, to be an intermediate step between their AI sapience and humanity, who created us.”

“I do not understand,” the Uchikoma says. 

“It’s okay,” Proto tells it. “It’s not your fault you’re not the same as them.” He is crying, he realizes, his tears rolling slowly down the green-painted shell of this particular Uchikoma, but he lacks the strength or the will to hold them back at this point. He only stands here, weeping with his head resting against an AI tank that lacks the sapience or the understanding to comfort him back. And yet it’s better than nothing. 

—

Proto is sitting with his arms on his knees, his back against the Uchikoma’s leg, when Batou’s voice comes over to him in cybercomm. “I see you’re in the Uchikoma hangar,” he says. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” Proto thinks listlessly. The door slides open, its hydraulics loud, obvious, and Batou comes in. He takes the scene in with a single glance, and then sits down cross-legged on the floor, heedless of potential oil and coolant spills. 

“Are you sure you should be sitting there?” Batou asks, glancing at the floor around him. “You don’t want to stain that suit.” They are still speaking speechlessly, via cybercomm, and Proto appreciates that, because it means they can’t be overheard, not even by the Uchikomas.

“I checked before I sat down,” Proto says. “It’s fine.” 

“It may be, but you’re not,” Batou says. Sitting like this he is irreducible, immovable, like a great stone Buddha statue. “I came to check on you.”

Proto lets out a little laugh, but it sounds all wrong. Too high-pitched, too brittle. “Well, status report. I’m not fine. You knew that already.” He regrets it the moment he says it. It’s not Batou’s fault he’s feeling this terrible, and he shouldn’t be talking to a friend and colleague like that.

“I do,” Batou says, impervious to insult. “What I’m asking, though, is do you think you’ll be safe to go home alone? If you think it’d help, you can come crash with me, instead, for a couple days.” 

Proto knows he should be touched by Batou’s concern. But the idea of sharing a space with someone, no matter how patient and kind and forbearing, leaves Proto feeling oddly crawly. Just the idea of being observed while he endures this mental and emotional breakdown. “I don’t know if I’ll be safe.” Does he actively want to die? Not really, not at this point. But the thought of temporarily ceasing to exist is appealing, if only because it can give him some time away from the complicated tangle of his pain right now. This is probably something he should report, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want more of his agency stripped from him, not now. A decision made not to die is still a decision made to live, by elimination. “What I do know is I’ve fucked everything up.”

“Everything?” Batou scoffs, gently. “I doubt so. But talk me through it, so I can understand where you’re coming from.”

“I shouldn’t have tried to run that second tap on Hirano,” Proto says. He’s starting to shake — the first time he’s ever done anything like this, given his fine control over his physical body. “Even after that, I shouldn’t have tried to keep my cover. I should have left. There were ways. The Chief took me off the undercover part of the assignment the next morning, anyway. I let this happen.” There is a tiny logical part of him remaining that points out this is an entirely unfounded chain of events, but it’s being swamped by the sheer weight of guilt he is feeling right now. 

“That’s bullshit,” Batou says, his voice a low rumble in Proto’s head. “The old ape only took you off undercover because of what you uncovered at Hirano’s. Would we have found it if you’d made a break for it? I’m not so sure about that. What you did was important, even if I think the personal price you paid was far too high. But it was not a fuck-up. You were working with limited information at the time. So do we all. You’re better at assessing the big picture than I am, granted, but smart and logical doesn’t mean you’re omniscient.” This, Proto knows, is meant to be an offer of absolution from the mire of self-blame he has stumbled into, and he wants to reach out for it. But his conscience continues to stab at him, a thousand tiny wounds too small to bleed, that hurt nevertheless. 

“There’s more,” Proto continues, unable to stop now that he’s started giving voice to every single bad thought trapped within his titanium skull. “Before I started the undercover assignment — I guess I’d anticipated what eventually happened to me, and I was scared, and I don’t know why it’s okay to say this to you, but I was a virgin, and I didn’t want to stay one, just in case what happened happened. And it did.”

“Logical, yeah, and entirely understandable.” Batou says, with surprising gentleness. But it’s not a surprise at this point, is it? Batou has always been the kind of man who has never come across as insecure to Proto. “What did you do?” he asks.

“I asked a friend to sleep with me,” Proto says, almost choking on the words, despite the fact that his voice is not involved in the conversation they’re having. “We did. But it’s changed something, and I know I fucked that up.” 

Batou sighs. “Proto, sometimes I feel that it’s unfair, the amount of growing up you’ve had to do in the past two years. You’ve had to die, lose all your siblings, and watch them be replaced by sad parodies of their former selves. You’ve had to work in a dangerous profession, kill people, see and experience things nobody should ever have to, and you have to do it all professionally, reliably, in secret, because what we do here isn’t public knowledge. And your competence makes us forget how young you really are. I’m not talking about immaturity, you understand? More like… we assume you know all the things we do, when it’s clear you don’t. And mea culpa, one of us should have anticipated this and spoken to you about it sooner. Proto, you don’t choose the people you love. You just do. The only thing you can change about that is how you act around them. In an ideal world, you can have love and friendship both. Look at Togusa. He’s best friends with Anri, and they’re both still married to each other. But some of us, we don’t live in that world.” 

It’s clear, even through Proto’s misery, what, or more precisely, who Batou is talking about. He’s talking about his silent, unspoken love for the Major, who is no longer at Section 9. “The worst thing you can do for yourself now, Proto, is to just leave it,” Batou continues. “You can’t move forward, and you can’t go back. There’s no closure, no resolution. What you need — what you both need to do is talk this over, and make a decision. And no cheating and deciding for yourself what you both need, because that’s not how friendships or relationships work. It’s a bilateral kind of thing. Go to them. Tell them how you feel. At least that way the both of you will have enough information to decide whether you want to try for a relationship or not.” 

It seems to make sense, at least the way Batou has laid things out. “What if he says no?” Proto asks. 

Batou shrugs, a little sadly, an odd gesture seen in the silence of their conversation, oddly devoid of context to anyone who isn’t patched into their discussion right now. “Then at least you have the past, and you can both move on to separate futures.” Batou’s acceptance of his own loss makes the idea of losing Takumi less terrible to Proto — surely, Batou’s own relationship with the Major was far more complex, and far stronger than what Proto and Takumi have shared over the past few months. And if Batou can bear this separation, then maybe all isn’t lost for Proto, either. 

But then another thought occurs to Proto, and he flinches physically at the idea, another disowned gesture. “And what if he says yes? How do I continue, after —” The only reason Proto manages to say this to Batou, even in the privacy of their silent conversation, is because of the absolute lack of pity in Batou’s face. Batou looks sad, yes. A little weary, and very carefully angry. But he does not pity Proto, and that makes all the difference. 

“I think if he loves you, and is worthy of your love, he’s going to understand if you find it difficult to be physically close right now,” Batou says, flashing Proto a sad, knowing smile, brief and lopsided. “Only you can set your own boundaries, because you’re the only one who knows what is and isn’t comfortable for you. And if he doesn’t respect them, then I’d say you’re better off without him.”

“Throw out the whole man?” Proto laughs a little, a genuine laugh this time, and it feels better than he thought it would to let it out.

Batou nods. “Like they say in advice columns, the whole man. Look. I have to follow up on this, okay? Will you be safe alone? If you feel like you need to hand over your sidearm, you can pass it to me, I’ll have a word with the Chief, nobody else needs to know.”

Proto thinks for a few moments, and Batou waits wordlessly for his answer, silent, patient. A good and loyal friend, as the Chief said. And then Proto lets out a sigh and stands slowly, using the leg of the Uchikoma as a prop, and shrugs his coat off. “If you could hold this for me,” he tells it, and it grasps at the collar of his coat with its manipulator claw. “Thank you.” He shrugs off his shoulder holster, feels a curious lack of dread at doing so, and passes it over to Batou, who has climbed also to his feet. 

Proto is putting his coat back on when Batou speaks over cybercomm again. “I’ll give you a call six, twelve, and twenty-four hours apart, okay? Just to check in. And you can call me any time in between, if you feel like you can’t handle your feelings, or if you just need to talk.”

Proto doesn’t have the words to articulate each and every one of the feelings competing for his voice right now, so he only takes a step closer to Batou, and another, and then leans into him with most of his weight, his face pressed against the reassuring solidity of Batou’s shoulder. 

“I’m going to reach up and pat you on the back, okay, kid?” Batou asks, very softly, so it’s not a shock to Proto when he feels Batou’s hand over his shoulder. “It’s not okay. You’re not okay. It would be a lie to tell you either. But you will be okay, it’ll just take time.”

Proto finally finds the words to use, and he thinks them silently into the channel they’re sharing, while he takes comfort in the texture of Batou’s shearling coat and the smells of spent gunpowder and machine oil that cling to it. The slightly spicy fragrance of Batou’s cologne, whatever it is. “How is it that you know all the right things to say?”

Batou’s mental voice is sad and quiet when he does reply, after a long silence. “You’re not the only one to have been hurt this way. It happened to me too, decades ago, before my first prosthetic body, when I still thought I was a girl.”

“Oh.” Proto wonders if he should feel guilty at being so wholly consumed by his own pain and despair that the thought had not occurred to him, but Batou’s voice is absent of blame, as is his touch. 

“I still get nightmares, rarely.” Batou says, and he lets go of Proto easily, as Proto leans back and takes more of his weight on his own feet. “But it’s just old pain now. Like an ache that pops up in an old man’s knees when the weather changes.”

“Like Ishikawa?” Proto asks, using his voice this time. It’s encouraging, what Batou is saying. Proto doesn’t hope to be whole, not in the state he’s in. But the idea that his present anguish will be an old hurt given time gives him an odd, fluttery feeling of hope that he will at least heal enough to be able to function normally, more or less.

Batou nods. “Like that,” he says aloud. “Want me to walk you down to the parking garage? Or do you just want a lift to my place, if you can’t deal with going home alone? It’s just me and my dog, there, but she can keep you company while I’m gone.” 

Proto pauses to take a breath, and another, finds himself slightly steadier than he was before. “The walk sounds great, but I’m going to have to turn down the kind offer of your hospitality. There’s someone I have to see.”

“The best of luck with that. But you’re smart, and generally have good taste. I can’t imagine you catching feelings for a complete asshole.” Batou is sincere, despite the flippancy, and Proto takes encouragement from it. 

“I guess we’ll see about that,” Proto says, as the hangar doors open.

— 

It’s 3:32 PM when Proto pulls out of the parking garage in the building that Section 9 uses as a HQ, and the familiar scent and texture and sounds of his work car comforts him almost as much as the talk with Batou did. It’s a full-sensory experience that cradles him wholly, and it reminds him of who he is in a way that grounds his restless mind. It’s perhaps somewhat apt that an artificial person like Proto would respond to the sound of a car’s engine like an infant would to their mother’s heartbeat, but he’s also heard anecdotes of human infants falling blissfully asleep on car trips. Perhaps there’s just something about the steady purr of a well-tuned car that soothes. Besides, the RX-8 represents freedom to him, responsibility. In some parts of the world, car ownership is a marker of adulthood. 

Surrounded in this tiny bubble of safety, Proto reaches out with his mind and dials Takumi’s personal number, hoping that this contact will be welcome. The phone rings once, twice, and then Takumi picks up. 

“I’m back,” Proto says without any preamble. “I’m sorry I was away so long.” 

There is a soft clatter in the background, and a long sigh. “I’m glad you’re back,” Takumi says after a few seconds of silence following the sigh. “I was worried.” 

“You’re at work, I take it,” Proto says silently. “Could I come see you?”

“Now?” Takumi asks. “Yeah, actually. It’s pretty quiet right now, and I can have Sakai or Wada cover for me. We’ve got a new apprentice too, Kuroda.” 

“I was actually thinking later tonight, for dinner, but —” and Proto breathes a physical sigh of relief then, unheard on his mental conversation with Takumi, “now sounds wonderful. I’ll be there in five.” 

— 

Takumi is standing at the counter, almost as usual, when Proto enters Sawada’s. The bell hanging on the door handle jingling softly as it swings shut behind him. It is not as usual, because Takumi comes out from behind the counter the moment the door shuts, and he steps up once, twice, closing the distance between them. Proto feels a sharp moment of panic at that, and he steps back, pressing himself against the door in a full-body cringe that occurs before he can rein in his threat assessment subroutines. Shame wells up deep within him as he reads the hurt on Takumi’s face, raw and naked before the accustomed glibness takes its place. 

“Well,” Takumi says, just a tiny bit bitterly, “I guess —” And then he abandons the attempt at humor entirely, and steps back, takes a more formal posture. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“No,” Proto says in a whisper, because he can feel a sob rising up to stop his throat, “no. It’s not like that. It was … hard, undercover. I’m still flinching from that. It’s not you.” 

“Oh,” Takumi breathes, very very softly, the hardness in his face crumbling — and Proto cannot look away from him, despite his own grief. How does Takumi do it, how do his expressions flit so delicately across his face? It’s one of the things Proto has been endlessly fascinated by, since the day they first met. “I’m so sorry. I — We should talk in private, if you’re okay with it.” 

“Upstairs?” Proto feels a small amount of trepidation at the thought. It was easy entering Takumi’s apartment six weeks ago, before he had gone undercover, and he had personally not paid any attention to the place, if only because he had spent most of his time focusing on Takumi and his physicality instead. Now, he’s not sure how he’s going to react surrounded by someone else’s space. But Takumi is worth the effort, he tells himself, and he knows intellectually and emotionally that Takumi is never going to intentionally hurt him, no matter what his own panicked reactions may indicate. 

“Yeah,” Takumi says, taking another step back towards the counter, and towards the curtain that separates the workshop here from the shop front. “I can tell Dad it’s a personal emergency. Someone else will cover for me. Come on back.”

The workshop behind the curtain is comfortably functional, a place that Proto feels oddly at ease in despite the fact that he’s not staff here, nor a tailor. It’s the spareness of the place that settles him, the businesslike clutter here and there. Oaktag patterns are hung up on elevated rails with tailors’ pattern hooks, and deep cubbies on the walls hold various fabrics. These fabrics are not the ones displayed outside in the shop front, they are things such as hymo and wigan and various interfacings, along with cloudlike rolls of wool wadding to pad out a chest canvas, rolls of pocketing and silesia. There’s a quiet thrum as someone puts their foot down on the pedal of an industrial sewing machine, and the bright, even lighting in the workshop catches on spools of glossy silk thread. 

Mr. Sawada is working at one of the cutting tables, laying a bolt of charcoal-gray wool fabric out and holding it down with heavy fabric weights, when Takumi steps up and murmurs something to him. Each of Mr’ Sawada’s movements is light and automatic from decades of experience, with no wasted energy, and he pauses in his work to listen to his son, then looks up at Proto, standing across the workshop from him. One of his eyebrows rises towards his thinning hairline, and he nods once, twice, and whispers a reply, his expression almost entirely unchanged. Then he barks out an order. “Wada, if you could cover the front for Takumi right now, once you’re done with whatever you’re doing.” 

“Yes, boss,” someone else calls from further back in the shop, from under the old-fashioned staircase that leads up to the small staff break room upstairs that joins the apartment that Takumi lives in. 

The fabric weights that Mr. Sawada has used, Proto notices, are not standard industrial ones. No, they’re stacks of heavy steel washers, crocheted around with bright loops of yarn, which is at once charming and practical. Proto once wandered mentally down the products on a tailoring supply store’s website, looking at what went into a hand-tailored suit, and he had stumbled down the other wares available to tailors, such as tailor’s hams, the rounded cushions tailors shape collars and chest canvases around, and sleeve boards, the long toggles on hooks they used to hang clothing patterns on for storage. Even the weights were expensive. A stack of washers, in comparison, costs far less and looks far more attractive bound with colorful yarn.

“Come on up, huh?” Takumi says to Proto, and they climb up the narrow stairs one by one, to the small break room. An apprentice Proto doesn’t recognize is standing at one of the tables, waxing lengths of thread with a block of beeswax and a small electric iron on a miniature iron board. She looks briefly up from her work, blinks as Takumi unlocks the door leading into his apartment, but decides discretion is the better part of valor, and does not comment. “That’s our newbie, Kuroda.” 

Takumi’s living room is just as Proto remembers it, there’s the long, roomy couch sagging in the middle from a generation of Sawada children jumping on top of it, the low, scratched coffee table covered in showy photo books, the side table holding a tall lighted terrarium with some live plants and a pair of tiny tree frogs in it. Proto thinks he’ll be okay for now, if they stick to the living room. It’s not a space that has any particularly fraught emotional memories attached to it, and the frogs are a possible distraction, besides.

Takumi sits down on one end of the couch, the one opposite the terrarium where the tree frogs live, giving Proto the option of sitting closer or farther away, and Proto feels an ache at his thoughtfulness. It feels like a little too much for his raw feelings right now, but sit he does, in the middle of the couch where the cushions sag the most. 

“You’ve changed your hair,” Takumi murmurs quietly, “like you said you would. You didn’t cut it all off, though. I would have cried if that had happened.” Most of Proto’s hair is still pulled tightly back and up, but the layered bits of Souji’s haircut fall unruly to frame his face. He’ll need to hold them back with bobby pins in the field, at least until they grow back out. 

“It was dyed darker, too,” Proto says, “but I had a coworker help bleach it back out once I was done. I just couldn’t live in someone else’s skin, not for a minute more.” 

“Mhm.” Silence falls between them, but it’s a companionable quiet, filled with the potential for understanding, as opposed to an uncrossable gulf. Proto thinks of Batou’s advice, and reaches within himself to probe carefully at his fresh wounds, at the brittle equilibrium he’s managed to establish. He can do this, he thinks. The strength and will are still there, even if he’s tired, and it’s so much easier to think of the right words now that Takumi is here, sitting beside him. 

“Takumi, I want to apologize,” Proto says, after he finishes arranging the words correctly in his head. “When I asked you to sleep with me, I was preoccupied with my own feelings, and my own fear, and I hadn’t thought of how it could hurt you. And I know I have, because — I remember the look in your eyes when you told me it was a hell of a request.”

“I’ll be honest here,” Takumi says, “I spent the next couple days regretting my agreement. Not that we fucked, because that part was pretty good, but that I let my own wanting lead me to that decision. Because I think we were managing pretty well without taking that step. But I couldn’t say no. Not to you.” 

That fills Proto with equal amounts of warmth and bittersweet ache, the thought that Takumi has been so besotted with him that rejection hadn’t even crossed his mind. “You’ve been honest with me the whole time, though, that you’ve been attracted to me.” 

“Yeah,” Takumi says, his gaze distant, thoughtful in the long shafts of sunlight angling through the windows on this late afternoon, “but considering the situation, I don’t know if I was being entirely ethical. You were scared, you weren’t being entirely rational, I don’t think. I feel like I took advantage of you.” 

“That’s sad and hilarious, because I’ve been feeling guilty for the past six weeks about the fact that I took advantage of you.” There is another one of their long, mutual silences, and Proto knows, for some reason, exactly what Takumi is thinking, because it’s what he’s thinking himself. _We’re both such idiots._ But there’s more to discuss, and it’s better to get everything out in the open, right now. 

“I don’t blame you for jumping at the opportunity, by the way,” Proto says after more wordless thought. “I think it was a good thing, in the long run, because of something that happened to me while I was undercover.” It’s odd talking about the five and a half weeks he’s spent being Souji Kondo as though it was something that happened a long time ago, when he only just stopped being Souji today. 

“Someone hurt you, didn’t they?” Takumi asks, very gently.

“Yes,” Proto says. “Is it okay if I say more?”

“Only as much as you want to. I don’t need to know everything if it’s going to hurt you to talk about.”

“I’ve faced my death before. Made my peace thinking that help wasn’t going to arrive in time, and from my point of view, it didn’t, because I’d lost consciousness by the time they arrived. And that helplessness still wasn’t as bad as —” and Proto’s voice breaks then. Takumi reaches out for his hand slowly, telegraphing every movement, and it’s easier to reach back out for that quiet touch than to sit here, walled off with his pain. “I was trying to run a tap on someone’s private network, and he spiked my drink. I knew it was spiked, and it wouldn’t have worked on me, anyway, I have some safeguards in my body. But he didn’t know that, and I had to play along, the whole time. That’s why I’m no longer undercover. My boss pulled me from the assignment half an hour after he got the report.” 

Takumi’s grip tightens on Proto’s fingers, and Proto squeezes back. “And that’s worse, isn’t it, than if someone had just forced you,” Takumi says. Tears are rolling down his face, welling up in those soft dark eyes. “Because you had the ability to break free and make it stop and you couldn’t.”

“There’s a part of my mind that keeps going over it, and the horrible feeling that things could have turned out differently if I had acted a different way. It never stops, and I’m exhausted because I can’t stop thinking about it.” Proto starts crying too, partly in sympathy for the tears that Takumi sheds for him, and partly because he has exhausted his own stores of composure for now.

“Oh gods and Buddhas,” Takumi breathes, “I’m glad your scary non-specific coworkers are probably still at work on this, because I’d start considering murder, myself. They are, right? No, don’t answer that, you can’t tell me, I know. And it’s probably safer if I don’t know.”

“Please don’t murder anyone on my behalf,” Proto laughs sadly through his tears. “It’s something, as they say on TV, you shouldn’t try at home.”

“Leave it to the professionals, yeah.” Takumi pulls a handkerchief out of a pocket and offers it to Proto, choosing to wipe his own tears away with his shirt sleeve instead. “But that’s why you flinched away from me, earlier. Because even if you tell your mind it’s okay, your body still remembers.” 

Proto lets go of Takumi’s hand to take the handkerchief, closes his fingers tightly around it after he’s dried his tears, but more keep coming. “Takumi, I love you,” he says. “Or I think I do, I’m not very experienced with this kind of thing. And I want to try for something more than a friendship if you’re okay with it. But I don’t know if you’re going to be okay with dating someone who flinches when people try to touch him.” 

“I — Hajime, I don’t know how someone as smart as you, and as competent, because you have to be to get your job, right?” Takumi reaches out for Proto’s hand again, the contact light, careful. “I don’t know how you could think that I would ever stop loving you, just because you’re not ready for anything more than holding hands right now. Because I’ve loved you, you great dumb himbo, since the day I first met you.”

“But is it going to work out, with me being unable to tell you about so much of my life?” Proto asks.

Takumi shrugs the question away. “I don’t know,” he says despite the flippancy of the gesture. “I’ve never seriously gone out with someone whose entire life is classified, Keiji notwithstanding, and in his case it was because he was so boring I wasn’t interested in finding out. But we’ve managed to get this far reading between the lines. I can’t see why we can’t keep going until we do find out if it works or not.”

“And the sex?” Proto asks, too. 

“I have hands,” Takumi says with a small laugh. “Intimacy is a lot more than just fucking, anyway. It’s about how you care for someone. And I’ll be here when you decide you’re ready to give it another try, if you do. I mean, I’ve never had a relationship with someone who’s a survivor of sexual assault, so I might fuck up. If I do, please tell me. But I’m willing to try.” 

At that Proto lets go of Takumi’s hand, shifts his weight on the couch so he’s lying half-curled on his side, and lowers his head carefully onto Takumi’s lap. “You’re doing great already,” he says. There’s a faint crawling in his skin, a shift in his equilibrium, but it’s transient and fades at the sensation of Takumi’s wool trousers against his cheek. It’s easy to look up from here and remember that he’s touching someone who he loves and trusts. 

“Good,” Takumi murmurs. “May I touch your hair?” 

“Yes. Thank you for asking,” Proto says. It’s slightly uncomfortable like this, but only because he’s a little too tall to curl entirely up on the couch, and his legs hang off at a slightly awkward angle so his feet brush the floor. Organic knees would be complaining somewhat at that, but his synthetic body does not. Takumi’s fingers are so light and gentle on his scalp, as he pulls the bobby pin loose from Proto’s hair, and pulls the topknot loose, freeing it to cascade across his lap. 

“This is really nice, you know,” Takumi says quietly, contentedly, as he continues to smooth Proto’s hair away from his brow, combing his fingers carefully through the mass of it. “To be absolutely honest, sometimes I think I hooked up with people just so I could touch them and be touched. It’s like the sex was almost incidental, sometimes.” 

“I haven’t ever done that, but I keep thinking of what it was like having you fall asleep with your head on my shoulder. I can’t remember the last time I’d been touched that much, in a way that wasn’t medical or technical.” That’s slightly incorrect, if Proto wants to be scrupulous, since Batou did just hug him, earlier today. But that was a brief thing, more of Proto resting himself against Batou’s shoulder than anything more tactile, because he simply couldn’t bear to be touched more than that, at the time. This is a different kind of solace, marked by its presence in this moment when Proto has temporarily run out of tears to cry, in the quiet of a hurricane’s eye. 

Minutes of silence pass, and Proto shifts from his current position to lie on his back on the couch, his feet propped over the end, with a spare cushion between his head and Takumi’s lap, because it’s more comfortable for the both of them that way. He can look over his feet into the terrarium, but the leaves are still. The tree frogs are probably nocturnal, he thinks, which makes sense, since Takumi tends to work late into the evening. A pet which would need attention during the day would find itself sadly neglected in this household. 

It’s much better to look up at Takumi, who is looking down at him, or to close his eyes for a few moments and appreciate this wordless, limited contact they have right now. Proto realizes with a vague surprise that this is the first time he has felt safe since yesterday evening. He could get used to this, he thinks. 

“Maybe this is me prying too much,” Takumi murmurs after a few more minutes drift by, motes of dust dancing on drafts in the golden late-afternoon sunlight, “so you don’t have to answer this, but how long have you had a prosthetic body?” 

Takumi’s touch has wandered a little from Proto’s hair, and he is now tracing the curve of his ear with a fingertip. But it feels okay, not frightening, so Proto lets it happen. “I honestly don’t remember much of a time when I hadn’t had one.” 

“So you got yours really young, huh,” Takumi says, supplying himself with answers in the face of Proto’s silence, drawing on things implied but unstated. “That makes a lot of the things you don’t know make sense now. You never had a hormonal adolescence, not really, so there wasn’t a time when you got to learn how dating other people worked. And it makes sense you work for public security too, since the military likes to recruit people who get prosthetic bodies young, because they’ve had more practice controlling them.”

“You could say that.” It’s a lie that isn’t a lie, in the grand scheme of things. “And while we’re on that topic, Hajime is my real name. It’s the name my father gave me, when I was born. He works as a researcher in Harima. But Iwasaki is my grandmother’s maiden name. That much I can tell you.”

“So it’s as real a name as whatever your birth certificate might say, if our laws weren’t sexist,” Takumi seems pleased at that. 

“Yeah,” Proto says. It’s very good to just rest here, right now, but he’s become more aware of the seconds ticking over in his head and on the watch on his wrist. This gives him a pleasant sense of normalcy because he’s always been aware of how time is passing, and also because of how last night and most of the morning seem to have passed in some kind of nightmare detachment, as though causality itself had stopped making sense. “How much time is your dad giving you off?” he asks Takumi, lifting his wrist lazily to study the dial of his watch. It’s something he doesn’t need to do, but it’s nice to have an excuse to look at something so well made. 

“I’ll have to come back and mind the store after everyone else leaves, but that won’t be until 6:30, 7PM,” Takumi says, checking his own watch. “We could go out for a late lunch or an early dinner now, depending. You look like you need it.” 

“I’ve got the whole week off, actually,” Proto says. “With the option of taking another if I’m still not feeling like myself at the end of it.”

Takumi lets out a low, deep chuckle at that. “Damn,” he says with mock awe, “the most I’ve ever been off at once is five days, for the New Year and Golden Week. Thinking of taking a vacation?” 

A vacation. It might be a good idea, Proto thinks, to just go somewhere he’s not familiar with and break the routine, and dissipate the bad feelings that have inadvertently attached themselves to that routine. “I might, yes. It will have to be close by, though, I’m still on call, in case of emergencies.”

“Yeah. Makes sense.” Takumi’s smile turns impish. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll go downstairs and talk to Dad, see if he can give me a few days off.”

“Now?” Proto raises an eyebrow. It must be nice working for a family business, but he can also see the potential pitfalls. Presumably Mr. Sawada must be a good boss, also, to inspire such loyalty in his son. 

Takumi shrugs, turns it into a long, slow stretch, and Proto finds himself staring at the hint of shirt peeking out the bottom of his waistcoat, as his movement displaces the garment. “I never take any time off, as it is. And I’ve never been serious enough with anyone before, to even mention them to him. I think he’s secretly relieved that I’m doing something normal for once.”

That makes Proto laugh, in turn. “Normal, you? Me? I don’t think so,” he says.

Takumi winks at Proto, conspiratorially. “We don’t have to tell him that much.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Proto takes the time to go out to Nara on a secular pilgrimage to recover from the time he spent undercover as Souji Kondo, and he and Takumi begin searching out the boundaries of their relationship while they're there. 
> 
> Content warning: State-sanctioned assassination

Nara was once the capital of Japan before being superseded first by Kyoto, and then Edo, which was eventually renamed Tokyo, and now Fukuoka. 84 years of being the imperial capital 1249 years ago, during the Heian era, has marked Nara with an air of antiquity especially with the many shrines, temples, and ancient ruins located within its limits. Those cultural treasures of Japan nestle comfortably up against various tourist traps — hipster cafés and bookstores, souvenir shops, art galleries, a microcosm of the nation’s soul in the 2030s, where the traditional lives intermingled with the hypermodern.

It’s also where Proto has chosen to spend a few days of his week off, on a secular pilgrimage of sorts. He’s not alone — as though he could be alone in a city packed full of tourists and fairly tame deer, but also because Takumi is with him. Proto doesn’t know what exactly Takumi told his father to get five days off to go to Nara with, but he’s trying to learn from Takumi’s example. Sometimes you don’t need to know the specifics because the grace you find unstated is more than sufficient. Music is, after all, more than just the notes that are played, but the silences between them as well. 

Nara became a top contender for several reasons: it’s only 90 minutes’ drive away from Niihama City limits if you take the old Kobe route east and then merge onto Route 24, which means it’s close enough for Proto to return abruptly if he’s called in on an emergency. But convenience isn’t the only reason why he’d chosen Nara, or he could have gone somewhere closer instead. There are two, well, three more reasons. Firstly, Takumi has been there before, and can guide him through most of the attractions. Secondly, Takumi has relatives there who can give them a cut-rate ryokan room on short notice. The third reason is slightly less practical and rather more philosophical. 

Proto is not a believer in any religion, if only because he lacks the proof and the faith to commit himself to any kind of spiritual or religious practice. And besides, the tenets of most faiths don’t really align with the nature of his work at Section 9. Nevertheless, a city full of shrines and temples, even ones that are visited as much by foreign tourists as by pilgrims, feels like it might provide a cleansing experience for his weary mind. He wants to stand in halls consecrated to worship and imbibe their serenity for a time, and perhaps bring it back within him when he goes back to work at Section 9 a week from now.

The drive down the Kobe route is going smoothly — it’s 9: 21AM and Proto and Takumi have just left Niihama City limits. They are well-supplied with drinks and konbini snacks, and their luggage is stowed safely in the trunk of the RX-8. A notification pings on Proto’s cybercomm. He knows who it is from the ID, which his caller has left on; it’s Batou. 

“Check-in number two,” Batou says when Proto picks up, “you know the drill. How are you doing?” Batou had called Proto last night to check in with him and make sure he wasn’t going to kill himself, as promised. Proto had answered while sitting on Takumi’s couch, watching the tree frogs climb the plants in their terrarium. Takumi has assured Proto that the frogs will be fine while they’re on vacation in Nara, because he’s already strong-armed one of the apprentices at the shop into feeding them crickets from the cricket tank and changing out their water. 

“Better,” Proto says, probing within himself to gauge the complicated tangle of his feelings. “I think,” he says, qualifying the statement, “I’m not entirely sure yet. Could you tell the Chief, if he needs me for whatever reason, that it’s probably going to take two hours for me to get back to Niihama City? I’m headed to Nara for a few days.”

“To clear your mind?” Batou asks. He sounds encouraged by that, which makes Proto feel oddly better. 

“Hopefully, yes.” Proto slows the RX-8 by easing up on the accelerator, as an asshole passes him on the left. He’s not going to find enlightenment in Nara if the other drivers on this highway don’t stop annoying him, that’s for sure. 

“Watch out for the bowing deer,” Batou tells Proto, a hint of a chuckle under his voice. “They may look cute and act polite, but they can be real jerks, especially this time of year.”

“Oh?” Proto has heard of the famous tame deer of Nara, of course, and thought them particularly handsome animals, with their slim agile legs and spot-dappled hides, but he hasn’t really read much about their behavior, himself.

“Yeah, this is the time of year when the stags go into rut. They get territorial and loud.” 

“Noted,” Proto says, “Thank you, Batou.” He speeds back up again, to match the other cars around the RX-8 on the highway, and appreciates its smooth, steady response. 

“I’ll call you again tomorrow, make sure you didn’t get your ass kicked by an angry stag.” That makes Proto chuckle aloud. 

“Hm?” Beside him Takumi stops watching the road and turns to watch Proto, his gaze soft, contented as the kilometers pass them by. It is as though they are in a frame of space-time that only they can reach, protected from the outside world by a shell of amber. And why not? Is that not why cars are such good places for private talks, because of the way they enclose the participants in the discussion? 

“Coworker called to check in, he’s got a warning about the deer in Nara.” Proto says, and Takumi turns the music playing down without even moving — he’s got his cyberbrain plugged into the auxiliary jack right now. Mondo Grosso’s acid jazz recedes into a whisper, a hiss in the background almost drowned out by the RX-8’s comfortable purr and the sound of tires on asphalt.

“Oh, those guys,” Takumi nods sagely. “Yeah, they’re so used to people giving them snacks that they can get pushy once they see you holding those special deer cookies they sell, and I mean, physically so. They’ll headbutt you until you hand it over. But I’m sure we’ll be fine, right? You can protect me.” 

“I can’t just reach out and suplex a deer into submission,” Proto says, smiling at the visual, “there are laws about that. I’m not carrying my sidearm, since I’m on leave, and it’s not like a pistol round would do more than make it even angrier, in any case. Also, I could get in so much trouble for discharging my firearm off-duty, even if I had it.” 

The above is not entirely true: Section 9 field officers employ AP-tipped explosive rounds because so many of their opponents are armored combat cyborgs. One of those aimed at the vital organs of a sika deer (which are relatively small-bodied for ungulates) would cripple and eventually kill. But that’s not something Proto needs to tell Takumi, who’s a civilian and who doesn’t need to know the ins and outs of ballistic trauma, especially as it pertains to living bodies.

“Stop it,” Takumi laughs, “you’re ruining the romance. But I guess it makes sense. Outside of movies and games people with guns aren’t meant to be dashing romantic heroes.” 

“No,” Proto agrees. “They’re a tool, as any other implement can be, but they also carry semiotic weight because their only purpose is to wound and kill. A knife is more of a tool than a gun. But I could scoop you up in my arms and run away from the scary deer like that, if you want me to be romantic.” That last bit is mostly a joke. Mostly, because if Proto had to run while carrying someone he’d much prefer the fireman’s carry across the shoulders, which would leave him with one hand free for self-defense, at least. 

“You could probably do that easily, too, but you don’t have to. I have legs, I can run, too,” Takumi says, with a little grin. He then turns, stretching the seat belt to the limits of its extension, and rummages around in the rear footwell before turning triumphantly back with a bottle of green tea in his hand. He cracks the lid and takes a sip, then offers it to Proto. 

Proto glances around him at the road, and takes the bottle from Takumi once he’s satisfied that none of the other drivers are about to try something stupid, like passing him in his blind spot. He takes a sip of tea, and then another, when he realizes he’s more thirsty than he thought he was, and then hands the bottle of tea back over. He spent the night on Takumi’s couch last night, unsure if sharing a bed with him was the right thing to do at this present point in time, and it’s a little bittersweet that this indirect kiss is the only one they can share right now, until Proto has had more time to heal.

But Proto still isn’t sure about being touched without warning, and he really doesn’t want to react before he can rein his enhanced strength and reflexes in, especially if Takumi does something like throw an arm over Proto while rolling over in his sleep. He doesn’t want to hurt Takumi. And it’s something Takumi understands, he thinks, which is good. 

“I normally like my bottled tea a little sweetened,” Takumi says, very softly, and Proto realizes he hasn’t turned the music back up. “But I don’t think I need any sugar now that you’ve had your lips on it.” 

Proto would blush if he could. Well, he can blush now, it’s just not an autonomic response like it is with organic bodies. Instead he blinks once or twice, and smiles. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever told me. Thank you.”

“You don’t need to turn to look at me,” Takumi says comfortably, easily, and Proto can see him out of his peripheral vision, sinking back into the suede seat on the passenger side of the RX-8. “I know you have to keep your eyes on the road. But you’re welcome.” 

— 

Nara is gorgeous in autumn, set as it is in a hilly basin surrounded by forests, which have turned a multitude of reds and golds and oranges. The ryokan they’re staying at is conveniently close to major tourist attractions too — it’s just a fifteen minute walk to Todaiji, an ancient Buddhist temple and also the largest surviving wooden structure in the world. Nara has been spared much of the environmental destruction seen around larger conurbations like Niihama City, if only because much of its economy relies on its natural beauty. There are birds everywhere — wild songbirds, instead of the crows and pigeons Proto is more familiar with. 

They pull into the parking lot outside the inn at 10:47AM, just as a vanload of pilgrims departs, and Takumi gets out of the RX-8 without any preamble. “Aren’t we a little early for check-in?” Proto asks him, as he gets out of the car, too. 

“Oh, yeah,” Takumi says. He’s popped the rear suicide door open to collect the snacks and drinks they didn’t eat, still in their plastic bag in the rear passenger footwell. “We’d get turned away and asked to come back at the normal check-in time if we were normal guests, but we’re not normal guests.” At that he looks up over the top of the car at Proto and grins smarmily, then chuckles. “I’m family, and we’re together, so you’re family too. Warning, my aunt can be a little —”

“Conservative?” Proto asks, supplying a word as Takumi trails off. 

“No, ‘squeaky’ was what I had in mind,” Takumi says as he closes the rear door, then the passenger-side door. “She’s really enthusiastic and she sounds like Minnie Mouse when she’s excited, and she’ll be so excited that I finally have a boyfriend to show her.”

“Your family seems accepting,” Proto says, as he pops the trunk and grabs his own bag, slings it over his shoulder. 

They haven’t packed all that much, either of them, because Takumi’s aunt will let him use the laundry facilities at the inn, and Proto doesn’t anticipate being dressed formally in any event. His oversize duffel bag is packed with two rolled-up t-shirts and two casual shirts for layering, one of his fine merino sweaters, which codes either as formal or casual depending on what it’s worn with, and one pair of climbing pants that he’s taken to wearing instead of khakis on casual days at work. Also, a pair of hiking boots, for long days walking around Nara, a knit hat and scarf in case the weather turns nasty. He’s already wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved v-neck t-shirt under his rain jacket today, which should be sufficient.

Takumi hauls out his own wheeled suitcase, but he does not pop the handle to drag it behind him. That’s because the wooden flooring and tatami mats in a traditional ryokan can be damaged by such bags being dragged around, and therefore the best thing to do is to carry it around. “Mom and Dad don’t mind because Atsushi’s married and he’s given them grandbabies already, and Ayako seems likely to be straight, too. Not everyone in the extended family is cool with it, but this uncle is. He’s my dad’s oldest brother. I have two other uncles who only tolerate me during New Year’s celebrations.”

“Right.” Proto says, and then he reaches his free hand out wordlessly and waits until Takumi hands his suitcase over, too. It’s all weight he can manage fairly effortlessly, given his enhanced strength. 

“How about you, showoff?” Takumi asks him, after a brief false pout, “Your folks cool with the fact that you’ve sprouted a boyfriend? Or are they just relieved you’re finally doing something other than work?”

Proto laughs at the gentle jibe as Takumi helps him shut the trunk on the RX-8, and they walk together from their parking space to the door of the ryokan. “I haven’t actually told my father yet, but I don’t think he has any particular hangups in that direction. My mother isn’t in our lives any more, but she probably wouldn’t mind, either.” It’s strange to think about, but Proto has finally articulated something he’s been feeling but unable to say for a long time. If Dr. Asuda can be said to be Proto’s father, then the Major is his mother in a very similar sense. She was the one who developed the specifications he was to be built to, who shaped Dr. Asuda’s creation of his personality. So what he’s telling Takumi isn’t really a lie.

“Oh,” Takumi says, at the revelation that Proto’s mother is not living with his father, “I guess it must be hard to maintain a close relationship with your loved ones when so much of your life is classified.”

“It is. And I know it can be lonely for people on the other side, trying to care for lovers or children who can’t talk to them despite all their fear and worry,” Proto says. “It isn’t just people who work in classified fields — many professions that require more than the typical dedication can come with a higher risk of divorce. Look at the military, or police officers. But I try.” 

They take off their shoes outside of the ryokan, as etiquette requires. They leave their shoes pointing outward at the doorstep, and then step into the supplied indoor slippers before they enter. A small woman at the reception desk comes out from behind it the moment she glimpses Takumi coming in through the front door. She moves with the graceful and careful posture of someone who has worn kimono all her life, and with the carriage of someone younger than what her graying hair implies.

“Takumi,” she calls, shuffling up with surprising speed given her slippered feet and constrained movements, “it’s so nice to see you again. And your friend, is he staying here with you?” 

“Yeah, Aunt Sae, let me introduce you,” Takumi says. “Aunt Sae, this is Hajime Iwasaki, my boyfriend. Hajime, this is my Aunt Sae.” 

“A boyfriend! You’ve never introduced any one of them to me before. You must be someone very special to have finally met me.” They are clearly close, for an aunt and nephew. She’s patting Takumi’s sleeve as though he might as well have been her son, and her voice ascends the scale and goes squeaky, as predicted.

“He is,” Takumi says, and Sae claps her hands with joy the way a younger girl might. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Proto says, bowing deeply in respect, a slightly awkward gesture when he’s holding both his own duffel bag, and Takumi’s suitcase. 

Sae returns the bow and straightens abruptly, blinking in slight surprise. “You’re such a nice young man, and I just realized, I’ve left you standing there holding both bags, give me a moment. Makoto, Takumi’s here, could you come out and help with the luggage?” 

A young man with a slight familial resemblance to Takumi comes out of the small office behind the front desk. “Hey cuz,” he says, not the least bit annoyed by his mother’s request. He bumps fists with Takumi, the gesture odd, a tiny bit anachronistic given his own subdued kimono and the old-fashioned surroundings. “Your dad finally let you have some time off? I better go buy a lottery ticket,” he says with a laugh. 

“Yeah, I know, right? How about you? Uncle Isamu still chaining you to the oars?” Takumi takes his suitcase from Proto and passes it over to Makoto, who groans with false exertion as he hefts it. 

“You know it, it’s the Maeda family way,” Makoto says with a broad wink. 

Both Takumi and Makoto share a laugh, before Takumi explains further. “My dad took my mom’s family name when they married, since she’s an only child. Grandpa didn’t really mind, but Dad thought it’d be a pain in the behind to change the name of the shop when he took over.”

“Yeah,” Makoto agrees, “Grandma had four sons, so it’s not as though we have a shortage of Maedas running around right now.” 

Sae shows them to a room, one that she’d reserved specially for them last night, when Takumi called from his apartment to tell her he’d be coming to Nara the next day, and Proto is a little surprised at the sight of the place. The Maedas are apparently doing very well here in Nara, because the ryokan does not just encompass one main building, which they were just in, but there are several outbuildings that contain one or two suites apiece. 

Sae has assigned them a beautiful suite for the duration of their stay here in Nara. It’s really only large enough for two or three people at the very most, but there’s an outdoor patio with a spring-fed cypress tub on it, for open-air soaking, and the place has its own private shower and bathroom as well. The floors in the dining and sleeping area are both lined with silk-edged tatami mats, and light fills the suite from windows concealed by half-drawn blinds. It’s a lovely set of rooms, very private despite the thin walls and the transparency of the shoji screens, which gives Proto the distinct impression that this set of relatives is doing everything they can to encourage Takumi’s endeavors. He’s not entirely sure how he feels about the idea of his boyfriend’s relatives cheering any possibly amorous activities on from afar, but at least they’re being nice about it. 

“We built these oh, about thirty years ago to appeal to Western tourists, but we don’t get so many of them in the offseason,” Sae explains, “and it’s getting to late autumn now, when the deer are not so friendly.” 

“I was warned about them by a colleague,” Proto says, warming to Sae’s matter-of-fact friendliness. 

“Oh, yes,” she says with a little laugh. “The does are just as friendly as usual, they’ll still come up to you for those special deer cookies, but then the stags might take exception to that and try to chase you away. It’s that time of the year, you see. But it’s fine, the stags have had their antlers sawn off in a ceremony earlier this month, so they can’t really hurt you all that much.” 

“I… see,” Proto says. It’s good that nobody’s getting impaled on a set of antlers today. It would be really embarrassing to have to return to Section 9 for emergency repairs before his vacation has really started. 

— 

Proto and Takumi politely decline to change into yukata or stay for lunch, “a family meal,” according to Sae, because they want to see Nara right away, and they leave the ryokan the moment they’re settled in their suite. Proto carries his hiking boots out to the front lobby with him, and laces them on when he changes out of the indoor slippers at the front step. There are sika deer everywhere despite the season, and it’s a bit odd looking at them, because the ones in Nara are even smaller than he expected them to be. They watch the humans around them with large, dark eyes and nibble at the closely-cropped grass. There’s the faintest hint of musk and animal urine in the air under the salty-spicy smell of wet fallen leaves, possibly from territorial markings made by stags in rut. 

“Did you know,” Takumi says, as they walk slowly out towards the nearest shrine, Mizuya Shrine, “that the deer here are smart enough to wait for the lights to change to cross the road?”

“That makes sense,” Proto muses. “Adapt or die. The deer of Nara have clearly adapted to life among humans.” He wonders about the deer outside Nara, and how they live, and if wandering around begging treats from humans is worth having to live among them. Proto used to think that living among humans was a good thing. He isn’t so sure about it, any more. 

“The humans here have also made accommodations to make sure the deer can keep living here though,” Takumi says. “Drivers give them right of way on the roads, and wait for them to move on. And there’s the antler-cutting ceremony every year, so the deer can’t accidentally harm people. The Kasuga Shrine is where they do it. It’s further down, if you want to keep walking.”

“I’d love to see it,” Proto says, thinking of the mutual respect implied in Takumi’s statement. Maybe that’s how the deer and the citizens of Nara get along on a daily basis. “How do you know Nara so well?” 

Takumi shrugs as they walk through the cool air, and a dappled doe walks easily past them after determining that they are not holding any food in their hands. “I spent three summers working at the inn when I was in high school, and after that, three more years working there part-time for room and board and pocket money when I was in university in Osaka, until I decided to apprentice with Dad.”

“Is the ryokan staffed entirely by your family members?” Proto asks, teasing him very slightly.

Takumi answers him seriously, with a slight, thoughtful smile on his face. “Almost but not really. It’s like a family safety net for nieces and nephews who don’t make it to university, or who need a side hustle while they’re in school. Go work at the inn, you’re not going to do anything glamorous, but you’ll get fed and paid.”

— 

Kasuga Shrine is not one shrine but rather, several shrines built within the same sacred boundaries — there are four deities enshrined here, and two out of the four, Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto and Futsunushi-no-mikoto are both warrior kami, patrons of swordsmen and martial artists. There are also a number of lesser kami enshrined outside of the sacred boundaries of Kasuga Shrine itself, in smaller subsidiary shrines.

Both Takumi and Proto enter Kasuga Shrine respectfully, bowing and asking permission from the deities to enter at the torii, and they drift apart to avoid the middle of the stone path leading in, traditionally reserved solely for the tread of the kami. There’s a distinct change in the air that Proto senses but cannot quite articulate — a separation from the busy street outside to a more rarefied space, charged with contemplation. They purify themselves ritually, washing hands and mouth at a water trough, before venturing further in towards the honden, the main building where the gods are meant to reside. 

“Going to pray?” Takumi asks Proto, as he hesitates briefly.

“I’m not a believer,” he explains.

Takumi shrugs. “It’s not about whether you believe in the gods, and all about whether the gods believe in you. But I am a believer, even if you aren’t. Would you mind if I worshipped?”

“Let’s go together,” Proto says, making up his mind. 

They stand side by side at the front of the honden, and Takumi pulls on the ribbons fastened to a bell once. They both drop a five-yen coin each into the offering box as it rings loudly. Takumi follows his small offering up with two bows, and Proto follows suit. Takumi then rings the bell twice more, claps twice, and mouths a silent prayer with his hands held together, before bowing once again in thanks to the deities who have heard him. 

Proto follows all his gestures, but without the bell-ringing and the prayer. He isn’t sure what Takumi has prayed for. It would have been easy for him to read his lips, but that felt like an intrusion somehow, and also very much like the wrong thing to do in the serenity of this place. 

Takumi then leads Proto over to the main office of the shrine, where he buys an ema — a small wooden plaque where worshippers can write a wish to be dedicated to the gods — to be hung up at the shrine of Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto. Using the proffered pen, he fills the little wooden plaque with his neat handwriting, and then goes to hang it up. The shrine itself is covered with plaques already, left behind by other worshippers, and Proto gets a glimpse of the wish on Takumi’s ema when he hangs it up. _Keep my warrior safe,_ it says. 

“I don’t really see myself as a warrior, you know,” Proto says very quietly to Takumi, as they walk away from the shrine. He speaks softly not because he’s afraid of being overheard, but rather, because he does not want to disturb the quiet of the shrine. 

“But you are,” Takumi says simply. “You’re a cop, or a soldier, I don’t know which. Both count.”

“I’m a soldier, which means I’m both the defendant and the judge,” Proto says in reply. “There’s always a price paid for taking a human life.” 

Takumi remains silent at that, and they walk together in accord for a few minutes, before he speaks up again. “You’re trained to do it, though. And you have a reason for doing so.”

“I train enough not to hesitate, so it’s effortless in the moment. But it isn’t easy, and I don’t think it should ever be,” Proto explains, “even if I’m killing in self-defense, or in defense of others. I have done so before, so I can say with absolute honesty that the moment it becomes morally easy is the moment I no longer deserve the power with which to take life.” Proto really doesn’t know why it’s so easy to talk to Takumi like this, because these are all thoughts he’s had, but never been able to articulate with his colleagues. Perhaps it’s because he knows deeply, intimately, that Takumi will never judge him unfairly for saying what he thinks. 

Takumi mulls over Proto’s explanation for a few quiet moments, as they pass by worshippers and foreign tourists alike. There are still quite a few other people at Kasuga Shrine, even in the off-season. “I used to wonder why you were always so serious and thoughtful, you know? I thought at first it’s probably just your personality. And that’s probably part of it, sure. But I guess the other part is because you have to think about things like that because it’s part of your job.”

“Does it bother you,” Proto asks very directly, “knowing that I have killed people?”

“No.” Takumi says simply, finally. “No. I actually feel safer because it’s not easy for you, and because you worry about this kind of thing. Because it’s honestly scary to imagine people out there who look like you and me who could kill someone else as long as they had the right justifications for it. You’re right, it shouldn’t be easy.” 

Proto thinks of his co-workers at Section 9 and of how they would each react if they could overhear this conversation. They would likely hold different moral and ethical opinions, which is not something he can judge them for. You make your own peace with the duties you have however you can, to rationalize the necessities of the job when things aren’t so cut-and-dried as just shooting a terrorist to save a child taken hostage. 

But he thinks also of how Paz holds everyone at arms’ length, refusing to sleep with the same woman twice. Some people think he’s just boasting about what a successful panty-dropper he is in person when he says that, but Proto knows better. Paz does what he does so he doesn’t have to worry about having to drop that boundary separating his classified life from those of others. So he won’t have to break someone’s heart the day Section 9 calls them to come in so they can formally identify his body. 

Everyone at Section 9 has their own rationalizations and justifications for why it’s okay to kill, and they are necessary to keep functioning under the stresses of what is ultimately a very thankless job. But they have all paid their own price for doing so, some more so than others. Proto thinks of his own grief and violation, the fault-lines of trauma radiating through his mind. He tries to sound it out without touching it, tapping on the very edges of it like a child shaking at a piggy bank to determine its contents without having to break it.

Perhaps this, too, is part of the price Proto has to pay for being who and what he is at Section 9. But Proto was created to be human enough to doubt and to love, and he doesn’t think he can personally cut himself off from other people the way Paz has. Therefore he has to remain vulnerable, if only because vulnerability is how the love gets in, as it were. 

— 

A small amount of hell breaks mildly loose after the visit to Kasuga Shrine. Roasted sweet potatoes are a popular autumn treat in many East Asian countries, and Japan is one of them. Proto and Takumi pause to buy some piping hot paper-wrapped sweet potatoes from a street vendor, an older woman sitting beside her wood-fired oven-cart. She’s making decent custom despite the chilly weather, or perhaps because of it, and the fragrant smoke and steam rising from the chimney-pipe on her cart works better than any sign, lantern, or jingle. 

They pause to nibble on their warm, tasty morsels — ¥500 per pop — while they figure out where to go next — they could go south from Kasuga Shrine, through a path marked by many other Shinto shrines and reach downtown Nara that way, or they could break westward and head for the Manyo Botanical Gardens, or the Nara National Museum further west from the gardens. 

A doe and her yearling fawn both come up to Takumi, bowing their heads for a bite of sweet potato, but Takumi fends them off, holding his snack high above his head. “I don’t think you’re supposed to eat people food,” he says, but his attempt to reason with them turns into a high-pitched giggle as the doe nudges him insistently with her head. “Come on,” he tells it, and then yelps more in surprise than pain as the fawn tries to take a bite out of his trousers. 

“Hey,” Proto says, unable to fight the urge to laugh, “stop that.” He wraps what’s left of his sweet potato in the paper it came in and sticks it in a pocket of his rain jacket, then moves to shoo the doe and her fawn firmly away. This only attracts the doe’s attention, as she smells what Proto has tucked away in his pocket, and she fastens her clever mouth around the tab of the zipper holding the pocket shut and tries to pull it downwards. 

“Oh great gods,” Takumi giggles, “they’re learning to unfasten pockets, we’re doomed if they evolve thumbs.” 

“We are,” Proto says, retreating from the doe as she follows him every time he steps away. These are protected animals, he tells himself, he’s not allowed to touch them. But it’s not really that easy to observe that prohibition when they’re up in his business, trying to steal his snack from a securely zipped pocket. 

And then things get scarier and paradoxically even funnier when both Proto and Takumi hear a bellow from behind them. A stag bursts in on them, attempting to defend the doe, and he stomps his hooved feet and lowers his head several times. This is when Proto realizes that the deer don’t bow because they’re polite when they’re mugging you for treats. The deer are bowing because they’re signalling an incoming headbutt. This stag’s antlers have been trimmed neatly off and offered to Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto earlier this year, but Proto thinks discretion is going to be the better part of valor this time.

“Takumi,” he says, backing off as the stag continues bobbing its head, “my tactical training is telling me we need to run before he decides to rupture your spleen or some other internal organ.”

“Well, I’m not leaving without you,” Takumi says, and he grabs at Proto’s hand before they both realize what’s happened. The stag gives chase, and neither of them thinks of the fact that they’re holding hands. 

They laugh loudly and joyously like misbehaving children as they flee from the territorial stag, hand-in-hand, and the autumn air stirs Proto’s long hair, lifts it off his shoulders and tangles it as their feet crunch through the leaves fallen over the sward in Nara Deer Park. They make it almost all the way to the entrance of the botanical gardens before the stag gives up and returns to the doe, presumably to claim his share of the sweet potato Takumi dropped when they started running. 

“Oh man.” Takumi groans, and Proto holds him up by the hand as he tries to sink to his knees. “That was rough. I’m all out of shape.” 

“They’ve learned to mug people,” Proto laughs, his fingers still closed around Takumi’s, “this is an unacceptable public safety risk.”

“At least they don’t have guns,” Takumi says with a giggle, and then he stops and looks down at their joined hands. 

“It’s okay, I’m okay,” Proto tells him. He takes a step up, drawn by an inner longing as he looks into Takumi’s face, at the flush on his cheeks from that sudden exertion, and takes another half-step, until their chests are almost touching. “Would you mind if I kissed you, now?” he asks, in a tone of voice meant for Takumi’s ears alone.

“No,” Takumi says solemnly, sincerely. “Not at all.” 

“Good.” It’s just the barest brush of contact at first, lip to lip, but Takumi brings his free hand up to Proto’s chin, then hesitates. His fingers hover uncertain over Proto’s jawline, close but not touching until Proto reaches up himself, and guides Takumi’s hand onto his face. Proto marvels inwardly at how this tiny amount of control holds his nerves at bay, and he closes his eyes to the world, pushing mentally at his own boundaries to find his emotional pain. It is there constantly but not fraught, safely remote in this moment. Then they kiss again once more, harder, as they open their mouths to each other, before Proto pulls away to catch his breath. There are people watching, he knows, but he cannot bring himself to care about whether they might judge him or not, not when he feels like the center of his universe is standing here before him.

“What prompted that?” Takumi asks, pleased, a little surprised. He hasn’t yet pulled his hand away from Proto’s cheek, and Proto lets go of Takumi’s wrist and allows him to smooth wind-whipped strands of hair into a semblance of order. 

“You didn’t want to leave without me. That was beyond sweet.” The words come out all at once, in the breath of a contented sigh, and Proto lets go of Takumi’s hand.

“I love you, you brilliantly intelligent idiot,” Takumi tells him, and there is no sting in the gentle insult at all. “I can’t follow you everywhere and you can’t tell me everything, I know and accept that it’s how things will have to be. But I’m not going to leave you behind if I’m allowed not to.”

“Some people say love is war,” Proto says slowly, reaching for the words to say it with, “but I’m starting to realize that it’s more like a rescue mission.”

— 

It’s dark out, and the waning moon glows luminously through a scattering of clouds as Proto and Takumi reach hour three of their shared soak in the private bath on the deck, while a breeze rustles the garden plants around them. The air has a sharp nip to it, but Proto has not felt the cold at all, not while sitting up to his chest in steaming mineralized water. Neither Proto nor Takumi has said anything in the past hour, if only because the intense meditative atmosphere of the shared bath promotes a certain quietness — he’s experienced similar things in the Finnish consulate's private sauna, liaising with their security team during a summit two months ago. The intense heat relaxes intensely, but it also seems to sap Proto’s energy in a way that isn’t entirely physical — his diagnostics indicate that all is nominal. No, it’s a mental kind of tiredness that also dispels minor thoughts, like a clearing of the emotional slate, and it’s nice to sit in peaceful silence and not feel that constant buzz of misery in the back of his head for once. 

There are social rules about how one enjoys a hot spring or a shared bath, and it was those rules that put Proto initially at ease when he took off the yukata he had donned after his evening shower, to climb into the tub beside Takumi. It’s odd, he guesses, because it isn’t as though they haven’t explored each and every inch of each other’s bodies before, but there was a certain sharp panic he had to fight through that he now recognizes as shame, clinging and insistent. And that grieves him utterly in a way he hadn’t thought it would, because he has never felt any shame about his body before, nor any taboos about nudity, until now. Proto had never thought of himself as an innocent being before. Now he knows that he was to some extent, and he can never reclaim that lost innocence, no matter how many memories he asks to have deleted from his mind.

Proto thinks of the Abrahamic myth of original sin and how the primordial humans only learned shame after they had eaten the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, and he knows now that he has become more human than he was before, and gained knowledge that can never be unlearned. Even so, Proto rejects the reasoning of such theology, if only because he knows despite his pain and private humiliation that he has not sinned in this case, but only been sinned against. Perhaps there’s a deeper meaning to how the serpent groomed the first woman into giving the fruit to the first man, a transgression that she was blamed for throughout history. 

“I’m getting out,” Proto murmurs to Takumi, who looks as though he’s starting to fall asleep. “We’re both well-braised by now.” 

“Like the spare ribs that came with dinner,” Takumi says drowsily, dreamily. “I’m going to be fantasizing about them for months after this.” Dinner was traditional kaiseki ryori, which Proto is familiar with from a mob-sponsored lunch almost half a year ago, but the tone of this particular dinner could not have been more different. The Korinkai lunch had been a subtle challenge and insult aimed at Proto’s blond hair and foreign appearance, but Takumi’s aunt and uncle had joined them at dinner tonight, mostly because they wanted to get to know Proto better, and he had spent the minutes between exquisite courses of food telling them what he could about himself. 

Water runs off Proto’s chest and flanks, trickling down his hips and legs to splatter the wooden deck beneath his feet as he climbs out of the high cypress-wood tub, and steam rises off his heated skin as the cool air contacts his body. He knows Takumi is watching him, and there’s a faint itch of unease down his back that makes him turn to face Takumi as he starts towelling off. “What are you looking at?”

“Searching for spare ribs,” Takumi says with a goofy smile, “since you said you were well-braised by now.” 

That little joke distracts Proto from his unease, and looking into Takumi’s face helps. It is better, he thinks, to look into the eyes of someone you care for, and see their love for you shining out of their eyes. This makes it a little easier for him to be naked in this moment, now, and he pulls his yukata on but does not fasten the tie around his waist, because he’s going to be changing into a nemaki, or sleeping robe, once they step inside the room anyway. “I don’t think I’d taste very good, though. Prosthetic body and all. You, on the other hand…” 

“They say human flesh tastes like pork,” Takumi says, his eyes fixed on the narrow sliver of skin where Proto’s yukata hangs open. Proto still feels a faint hint of unease, but it’s residual, from the moments before. He decides to sit down on one of the chairs out on the deck, drawing the tail of his yukata demurely over his lap, but it’s not a gesture of shame as much as just one of comfort, to make sure his legs aren’t fully exposed to the chilly air. 

“I’ve read an account by a physician at the Sorbonne who ate a piece of muscle from a human body, and he said it was pretty good. Like veal.” Proto hasn’t tried veal yet, so that description doesn’t really help his imagination, but it’s something to go on, at least. 

“I don’t even want to know why someone who works for the government like you do needs to know that.” Takumi straightens up in the tub, as the water ripples around him, as though he’s made up his mind to get out before he becomes a bowl of very relaxed soup. 

Proto laughs at that, a little relieved at the fact that he has yet to investigate anything with cannibalism with it yet. He’s read novels about that, it doesn’t end well for the investigator in question. “I was just curious, that’s all. You know how it is. You’re lying in bed, reading articles before you go to sleep, and… before you know it it’s 2AM and you’re reading about the symbols on Led Zeppelin IV.”

Takumi laughs aloud at that, his laughter punctuated with the splash and drip of water as he climbs out of the tub, himself. “Led Zeppelin? Is that your music taste?”

“No,”Proto says honestly. “My music tastes are broad-ranging, what some people might call eclectic. I like classical. But I also like French pop and German industrial and Russo-American garage rock. I also like the acid jazz you played on the ride here. I’m going to have to check some of that out later.” 

Takumi is lithe and slender, with a slight hint of a soft belly that speaks to his love of good food, but his calves and legs are well toned from walking everywhere and standing all day — he hasn’t bothered getting a drivers’ license or buying a car, because owning one in Niihama City downtown is more of an existential challenge than a privilege. He’s beautiful standing there in the diffuse moonlight with steam rising off his skin as he dries off. Takumi doesn’t even bother dressing. He just collects his yukata and sash, left folded on the table where Proto is sitting, and steps inside their shared suite to dress for bed. 

Proto waits a minute more outside, because he’s enjoying the cool, fragrant night air, that feeling of pleasant, weary relaxation that comes from having spent hours in the amniotic warmth of the hot bath. Today has been a success, marauding stags and all. He’s still torn and wounded, yes, but it’s not a shock any more to reach within himself and find pain, if only because he’s learned to expect it constantly. And that, perhaps, is also part of the process of healing, to become used to hurt as one knits together until it fades and becomes a ghost of its former self. 

Proto rises from his chair and collects his towel and the sash of his yukata, steps inside the suite through the door that Takumi has left thoughtfully ajar for him. The light inside is low and warm, and Proto hangs up his towel before he takes his yukata off and folds it neatly up. A plain nemaki has been left on top of his bedding, a short, simple robe in indigo-dyed cotton, and he pulls it on and fastens the sash about its hips. Then he lets his hair down and kneels beside his futon to consider. 

The ryokan staff have placed the futons right next to each other, as they would for any other couple who have booked a room together. It would be trivial to move them apart, Proto knows, and there’s actually enough room in the sleeping area of the suite to do that. 

Takumi is already in bed, lying on his back with the kakebuton drawn up over his chest, but he’s awake, and he watches Proto, his gaze drowsy and soft. “Thinking about how to do this?” Takumi asks. 

“Yes.” Proto says, but he’s lingering also because it’s nice to look at Takumi like this. He’s incredibly cute when he’s sleepy, Proto thinks. 

“I won’t be offended,” Takumi murmurs from the depths of his cosy nest, “if you have to sleep on your own. It’s fine.”

“No,” Proto says. “I want to do this. It’s just that I don’t want to hurt you if you move the wrong way in your sleep. In case I don’t manage to control my reactions on time.”

“You’re not going to hurt me. I believe that,” Takumi says, “but I don’t want to hurt or scare you by accident, either.”

Proto thinks about all the times they’ve touched before, and the times specifically where he did not feel fear or unease, settles tentatively on a solution. “Hm. Would you mind if I held you, then? While we slept?”

“I would love that,” Takumi says with a tired grin. “Would that help you feel safer?” 

“What I’m afraid of is if you reach out for me in your sleep in a way that scares me,” Proto explains. “That’s not going to happen if we’re already holding each other, I think.” It’s also the agency in it, Proto thinks, that he’ll be able to decide how close they’re going to get if he’s the one doing the holding in this arrangement. 

Takumi nods, closes his eyes in a way that makes it plain that he’s about to fall asleep, no matter how he’s physically positioned in bed. “Good idea, that. So come on, I’m right here.” 

“Let me get the lights first,” Proto says as he rises from the tatami mat, beside the futon. “I can see in the dark.”

“Showoff,” Takumi says with a low chuckle. 

Proto’s low-light vision kicks in a nanosecond after he turns the lights off, and he finds his way back to Takumi and the two futons laid side by side. It’s easy then to turn the kakebuton over and climb into bed, and Proto settles the covers over himself before making his next move. Takumi lies drowsy but patient beside him as he gets comfortable on his side, and then Proto murmurs softly to him in the dark. “Why don’t you come closer now?”

“Okay.” Takumi squirms closer to Proto, backing carefully into him. That movement takes him out of the boundaries of his futon and half onto Proto’s, and the kakebuton slides off him, but he doesn’t seem to mind it at all, as he grabs his pillow and rearranges it so that his head is adequately cushioned. He’s lying half on the edge of Proto’s own covers, and Proto reaches out with his free left hand and drags Takumi’s kakebuton over him, to make sure he’s warmly covered against the chilly night air. 

They are now nestled together like spoons in a drawer, or beans in a pod, snuggled tight and safe and secure. Proto’s nose is buried against the back of Takumi’s head, his right arm under Takumi’s neck, and their hips and knees align as they fit together like puzzle pieces in the dark. “Is this okay?” Takumi asks Proto, after they both settle down. 

“This is more than okay,” Proto says. “This is perfect.” Takumi’s skin smells like the cypress oil that Sae had added to the bath after dinner, and Proto presses his face against the skin on the nape of his neck where the ports for his cyberbrain lie, and just inhales the very scent of him. This soon after a bath his skin smells clean, mostly of the fragrant cypress oil, but also subtly of the soap he used in the shower before he got in the hot tub, and there’s the faintest salty hint of sweat in his hair. 

Takumi sounds a little more awake now, and he pushes easily back against Proto, pressing himself closer in the nest of warmth and safety that they share. “Good, I’m glad,” he says, “but you won’t feel that way if I start snoring later.” There’s still a soft, sleepy blur to his voice, and Proto can tell from his pulse and breathing that he’s going to fall asleep soon. 

“I know you snore, you doofus,” Proto whispers against Takumi’s skin. “But I haven’t minded it before.” 

“Good, that’s…” Takumi begins to trail off, and Proto speaks no more. He only lies silent and waits, watches as Takumi drifts into sleep. You would think one would get bored watching someone else sleep, but it’s something Proto has never been bored by, not the one time that occurred the night they first fucked, and not now either. It’s just incredibly satisfying to hold someone in his arms and cradle them with his strength, shifting his own weight and position to keep them comfortable as he watches the dreams darting beneath their eyelids in the dark.

Maybe Proto will become used to having Takumi beside him, one day, in the future. But it’s not a state of affairs that he’s in a huge rush to get to. No, what they have right now in its challenge and novelty, that fraught untenable sweetness and fear as they learn to live with each other, that is good too. 

— 

Fall has given way to early winter by the time Proto sees Masayuki Hirano again. The previous weeks haven’t treated him too well — several acquaintances of his have died of illness and accident in the intervening time, and he has become paranoid, withdrawn, refusing to leave the glass prison of his penthouse. That is entirely fine, Proto thinks, because he can bypass Hirano’s enhanced security effortlessly now that he’s being himself, armed, armored in a low-profile sneaking suit, equipped fully as a field officer of Section 9. 

Proto isn’t carrying any more than his Seburo M5 sidearm and a boot knife, but he knows he won’t need either weapon. They’re there as backup options in case things go wrong, and he’s fairly sure they won’t. He is carrying his multitool in its holster as well, and a brace of cyberbrain jammers just in case he has to confront Hirano’s bodyguards, but he won’t, because the bodyguards are forbidden to enter Hirano’s bedroom to guard him at night. The patio, which is accessible only through the master bedroom, is unguarded as a result.

Proto enters through the front door of the building because he’s using his optical camouflage, and he slipstreams behind a janitor as he pushes the locked front doors open to sweep the stairs leading up to the foyer. His combat boots leave faint imprints in the plush carpeting in the hallways with each step, but he is also running a back-hack on the building’s IR and security systems, and there is no record of his passage, because he is also running a full censorium screen. This is something the Major used to do, frequently with Tachikoma assistance. The Uchikomas lack agent capability in cyberspace, so Proto has to do it himself. He can multithread his consciousness, however, and it’s a straightforward, if not a trivial task, for him. The people living in this particular building fear theft more than assassination, and therefore their security is adequate against burglars, but insufficient against a trained special operator such as himself. 

The elevator door opens to admit him, and he switches his divided focus from the hallway IR to the elevator IR records, doctors its input to convince building security that there is in fact nobody in this elevator, and that it is not going upstairs. Convincing it to go up to the penthouse level without Hirano’s security key takes a minute amount of additional effort, aided with a genuine fire key for that specific model of elevator. Proto leaves his optic camouflage off while he waits for the elevator to climb the many floors up to Hirano’s penthouse, because it’s cold outside and colder temperatures increase battery drain on the camo power packs, but it flickers back on right before the doors open. 

Hirano’s bodyguards are not posted in the lobby on the top floor that opens out into Hirano’s massive visitor parlor, Proto notices from his hack of the building’s IR feeds. Convenient. He probably feels more secure with them inside the penthouse with him, which is foolish. Proto can’t see into the rest of Hirano’s apartment itself due to the jammer he keeps running to prevent surveillance drones from tracking him from above, but that also blinds him to Proto’s passage through the building. The patio is not the only rooftop space in this penthouse apartment — there’s also a very beautiful rooftop garden where Hirano receives visitors in pleasant weather and its door is unguarded and unlocked. 

The distance between the rooftop garden and the patio is too far for most uncyberized people to jump reliably. Proto, with his synthetic body and built-in augmented reality vision, has already calculated his leap from the edge of the garden railing to the patio itself. That done he backs up a step, and then another, jogs a small distance backwards before he unleashes the full strength his body is capable of. His joints reconfigure themselves uncomfortably as he drops into a feral, animalistic crouch, and then he lopes on all fours towards the edge, his gloved fingers digging into the weatherproofed wooden decking beneath him for purchase. 

The leap is faith and mathematics, mass and acceleration forming poetry in motion as Proto cuts through the air like a javelin, and he lands easily on one knee, his feet gathered under the weight of his body as he straightens back up and moves like a human again. Wisps of his hair have come loose from the bun he’s pulled the main mass of it into, but he doesn’t bother pushing it back — it’s not going to get in the way of what he needs to do now. Proto tests the sliding patio door after looking it over with his enhanced vision, and it slides easily back, because of course Hirano assumed that nobody was going to break in this way. The patio door is well-maintained, and its movement in its track is silent. Only its motion gives away the fact that there is an intruder walking into Hirano’s bedroom right now. 

Hirano is not asleep. Proto doubts he has slept well in the past few weeks, but he can’t really bring himself to feel terrible about it. No, there’s a low light from the lamp beside the bed, and a faint prickling runs up Proto’s spine at the sight of it. Just because Proto has had the memories of his assault deleted doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember the events leading up to it, or after it, and he stills his hands with an effort of will. This has to be done gently and silently. 

But Proto is soundless on the hardwood floor and invisible in his passing. He slides the patio door shut behind him and steps through the curtains, and Hirano twitches, sitting awkwardly up to stare at the phantom movement. In that nanosecond Proto uses his enhanced reflexes and movement to act, and he reaches out and slips a cyberbrain jammer in a port in Hirano’s neck. Hirano remains sitting in bed in his expensive silk pyjamas, his eyes darting rapidly from side to side at his invisible assailant, his body still, unresponsive.

It is a trivial effort for Proto to lift Hirano from his bed, paralyzed as he is, and walk him gently out to to the patio. “Don’t worry,” Proto whispers softly into his ear. “I’m not going to shove you over the edge as you are. I’m going to break your neck first, because this has to look like a suicide, and we can’t have you screaming on the way down.” 

“Wh-” Hirano huffs, trying to make his mouth work, but he can’t get more than a wheeze out with each breath, not when his facial muscles and vocal chords aren’t obeying the desperate signals his cyberbrain is sending to the rest of his body. 

“You don’t need to know who I am,” Proto says, “but I’m going to give you a minute or two to make your peace. Pray if you need to. I’ll wait.” 

Proto starts a timer in his augmented vision, sets it for two minutes, and waits. He can feel Hirano’s lips moving numbly as he holds the man limply upright in his arms, bracing him against his chest so he can look down at the light and splendor of Niihama City at 3AM in the morning, that cruel time when the dark knows all your secrets. The seconds tick down one by one, until the two minutes is up, and then Proto reaches up with a gloved hand and snaps his neck, twisting hard to disarticulate his vertebrae properly and sever his spinal cord. He then plucks the cyberbrain jammer from the now-useless interface port on the back of Hirano’s neck and pockets it, tips him over the edge. 

Proto doesn’t bother looking down — he’ll have to move fast now, because someone is bound to notice the horrific mess Hirano is about to make once he hits the ground. He steps back inside Hirano’s bedroom and leaves something beside his empty pillow, as though he had taken it to bed with him. And then he reaches for the dead man’s slippers, and places them before the inside of the patio railing, staggered slightly so that it looks as though Hirano stepped out of them to climb over the edge. That done, Proto looks over the edge of the railing, just to make sure of where Hirano landed. And then he leaps from the patio back to the garden, and vanishes over the side of the skyscraper, his optic camouflage blinking on as he plummets. 

The light remains on in Hirano’s bedroom, and the cold winter air stirs the curtains before the patio door. Gleaming in the glow from the lamp is a priceless ivory carving of a diver woman in the embrace of two octopuses, one small and one large. The carving is exquisitely detailed, no longer than the length of a woman's thumb, and for a moment, the expression on her ecstatic face looks almost like a scream of agony in a strange trick of the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all your questions: 
> 
> Yes, that was a reference to the famous deer suplex scene in Nichijou.
> 
> Yes, that was a reference to the lyrics for Rise, the 2nd Gig opening music. 
> 
> Yes, that was a reference to Hannibal. And a reference to The Last Days of Fox-Hound. There are just references everywhere in my fic.


End file.
